


OF OATHS AND STONE

by VirginiaBlack517



Category: Merlin (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, But I don't ever write anything that's not Mature, Complete, Completed, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Declarations Of Love, Dragons, Emotional Hurt, F/F, Falling In Love, Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, I refuse to make Kara a bottom, Kara is Supergirl, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Love, Magic, Morgana is definitely a top, POV Alternating, POV Kara Zor-El, POV Morgana (Merlin), Slow Burn, Smut, SuperCorp, Well SuperCorp Eventually, Well-Written, Yes There's A Playlist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:22:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VirginiaBlack517/pseuds/VirginiaBlack517
Summary: Kara Zor-El left Krypton with a mission to protect her cousin Kal-El in their new life on a new planet, but she was tossed hundreds of years into Earth's past. Her quest to find her cousin unsuccessful, she lives alone in an abandoned castle - until the day a mysterious woman falls from the sky into her arms.Morgana Pendragon trusts no one but her dragon companion, Aithusa. The strange woman who has tended her wounds resists Morgana's powers and stands between her and her quest for vengeance against those who have kept her from her rightful throne - but she is also compelling and irresistible.Will Kara keep her distance and hide herself from Morgana and her legendary dark path, or will she reveal her true otherworldly nature to this woman she can't resist? Will Kara help Morgana fight the destiny she faces, or will she contribute to Morgana's foretold end?
Relationships: Aithusa & Morgana (Merlin), Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Morgana (Merlin), Kara Zor-El/Morgana
Comments: 247
Kudos: 1015





	1. UNFULFILLED PROMISES

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ValkyrieNine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkyrieNine/gifts), [NinjaKitten712](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinjaKitten712/gifts), [GiselleBrito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiselleBrito/gifts), [DrowsyCapricorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowsyCapricorn/gifts), [Roy_Min](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roy_Min/gifts), [2rivers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/2rivers/gifts), [Lance58](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lance58/gifts), [Baccan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baccan/gifts), [MimiTAT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MimiTAT/gifts), [Sananator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sananator/gifts), [quecksilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quecksilver/gifts), [dang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dang/gifts), [korvik93](https://archiveofourown.org/users/korvik93/gifts), [Jellybean_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellybean_writes/gifts), [buttxrscotch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttxrscotch/gifts), [sain21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sain21/gifts), [LadyGravdian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGravdian/gifts), [KLQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLQueen/gifts), [Elizabeth1991](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elizabeth1991/gifts), [A_Thespian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Thespian/gifts), [Cami49](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cami49/gifts), [Gargoyal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gargoyal/gifts), [Mmjohns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mmjohns/gifts), [jmcl1989](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmcl1989/gifts), [laikaspeaks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laikaspeaks/gifts), [lilies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilies/gifts), [dnmann](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dnmann/gifts), [v0rt3xRo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/v0rt3xRo/gifts), [gaeaX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaeaX/gifts), [JBQ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JBQ/gifts), [KarmelZilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarmelZilla/gifts), [Rareshipper96](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rareshipper96/gifts), [Avanwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avanwolf/gifts), [ForsakenAssassin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForsakenAssassin/gifts), [jublee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jublee/gifts), [WhatTheEl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatTheEl/gifts), [Kyng_tut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyng_tut/gifts), [Overgirl69](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overgirl69/gifts).



> Why jump into one new fandom when I can leap headlong into two at once?

**CHAPTER 1:** **UNFULFILLED PROMISES**

High in the cold lands of the north, though not as far as those of the midnight sun, a stone castle stood wrapped in the mist of a cold autumn morning. Kara Zor-El, last daughter of the House of El, climbed wide stone stairs slick with overnight rain. She stopped before a crumbling rampart of the castle that had been her home since the summer solstice.Abandoned for centuries, this castle and its keep sat high on a small island in the heart of a large dark lake.

Kara stared across the island’s scattered treetops at a view that had remained unchanged for who knew how long. The rays of the sun weren’t as strong at this time of year but she still felt them soak into her skin. The smell of the damp earth and the crisp forest, both lightly bruised by the earlier rain, blended with the scents of woodsmoke and the sea and soothed her growing melancholy. Simple comforts to ease the passing of one more day in a string of hundreds spent alone.

Time passed in uneven segments as she stood. Waves rolled and rushed at the water’s edge, gulls dove for fish, and the shadows changed and lengthened as the day passed. The late afternoon sky reminded Kara of times long lost, long before she’d come to this island, before she’d wandered from village to village looking for solace or even a warm meal and a clean bed, before she’d scrabbled for scraps between persecutions, before the first warm touch of this sun seared her skin with possibilities beyond imagination, before she set her first foot on Earth.

The sunset’s riot of red, orange and fiery yellow reminded her of the doomed final days of her home planet, Krypton.

Her skin cooled as the sun passed beyond the treetops. Kara came back to herself with a sigh and turned towards the keep.

She’d made her quarters in the highest room in the castle. With only a wide sleeping cot and a large chair, the room was otherwise bare. Kara glanced at the stacked wood in the fireplace and released an astounding burst of fiery visual energy igniting a roaring fire in seconds.

As she did every night at dusk, Kara sat as still as the stone castle’s walls, staring into the flames and listening to the sounds of the island, the distant shores and faraway woods.

For the third day in a row, she had not ventured away from the island. Instead, she had reflected on her mission and assessed her failures. The hours spent in meditation had yielded no guidance for a path forward.

Somewhere on this beautiful and dangerous planet, her cousin Kal-El, the last son of Krypton, needed her protection. Kara had promised not to fail him or her parents but their space-worthy escape pods had been separated soon after leaving their home world. While she herself had landed in this high country on Earth, she had no idea where her cousin’s had fallen, and soon after her arrival she had been singled out by the people of Earth for her strangeness. It had taken a long time for her to begin her search.

For the last ten years, she had combed every league of land on this planet, this Earth, for any sign of her cousin or his ship but had found nothing. She hadn’t even found proof of the technologically developed civilization that her parents had promised would await her. Kara hadn’t expected any place to be as advanced as Krypton, but this planet had little scientific exploration, only the barest of rudimentary medicine, and no electricity let alone computing power. Earth was archaic, and its inhabitants disconnected, disease-ridden and close-minded.

For all that, Earth held beauty beyond description, even if it wasn’t home.

Lost without her mission, Kara passed the days alone desperately searching for a new path to no avail. Every night found her atop this solitary ruin, staring at the sky and wondering how long she could go on alone. Her mother, Alura, had promised so many years ago to be with Kara in her dreams.

Now, Kara could only remember the outlines of her mother’s face.

When the fire burned out and even the wind fell silent, Kara wrapped her thick worn cloak around her arms and covered her legs. She tilted her head against the chair’s back and fell into a restless sleep where she dreamt of pain and misery, of fire and almost forgotten stars.

***

A shrill cry on the wind woke Kara before dawn.

Alert in less than the span of a breath, she searched in the direction of the cry’s source. It was the sound of a predator in pain, but she’d seen nothing of a size to make that sound in months - and nowhere near here.

Movement in the sky caught her attention. To the north, something flew over the forest.

Her powerful vision overcame the limited light and the incalculable distance. A small dragon lurched and pitched in flight. One wing appeared wounded and dark splotches of blood shimmered against its pale hide.

When it pivoted south and west, Kara saw a human form on its back. Sprawled along the dragon’s misshapen spine, dressed in the torn robes of a noblewoman, someone clung to the dragon as it lumbered in flight. Her face was hidden but she appeared to be in worse condition than her mount.

Another pained screech split the sound of the wind as the dragon pivoted south and west. The woman slipped from the dragon’s back and plunged toward the forest below.

Kara’s chair crashed to the floor as she took flight. She defied Earth’s gravity as she flew faster than the speed of sound, racing the woman’s fall to the earth.

The woman crashed into a tall treetop and Kara flew faster, changing her trajectory. Branches disintegrated as she flew through them, twigs and leaves catching in her hair. She landed with a crash, just in time to leap up and catch the woman. They collided in mid-air and the woman shouted and sobbed in agony at the contact.

“I’m so sorry,” Kara said, her voice little more than a sleep-deprived croak as she sank slowly to the ground at the edge of a clearing. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Matted waist-length hair tangled around the woman’s face, shoulders and arms, and her half-lidded green eyes were bright with fever. She coughed and blood stained her lips. Across the clearing, the dragon crashed, rolling over boulders and kicking up huge clumps of dirt. A gross sickly crunch signaled a broken limb before the dragon came to a stop, screaming its agony.

“Aithusa,” the woman cried, pushing against Kara’s unyielding limbs, trying to reach out to the animal.

“Shh. You’re tearing at your wounds.” Kara cradled the bleeding woman in her arms. “I’ll take you somewhere safe. Then I’ll tend to your beast.”

She started to turn her back on the dragon, but the woman’s fierce glare stopped her.

“If you hurt her,” the woman said, blood liquifying her words. She strained to raise one hand, clasped Kara’s tunic and tugged it as tautly as she could manage in her condition. “I’ll kill you.”

Kara believed the sincerity of the woman’s threat, but there was no time to explain such a thing was impossible - not if she was going to save this woman’s life.

Fury spent, the woman collapsed in Kara’s arms, her head lolling backward in unconsciousness.


	2. EVERY KINDNESS A THREAT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana awakens in a strange place and Aithusa is nowhere to be seen.

**CHAPTER 2: EVERY KINDNESS A THREAT**

Bright light and a deep biting pain pulled Morgana from the murky depths of oblivion. Her eyes adjusted slowly, but clearer vision only led to confusion.

She felt wind on her face though a huge fire crackled and spit a few paces away. Morgana didn’t recognize this huge room, empty with neglect and dark save the flickering light of the fire. She was alone and there was no sign of Aithusa though the room was large enough the young white dragon could have walked in circles around its edges.

Morgana lay on a large sagging cot, her body covered by a large blood red cape. Tattered tapestries, their stitched scenes too long faded to discern, flapped against the mossy stone wall far beyond her feet. To one side of the room, huge openings that might have been windows held no glass and revealed a sunny morning. To the other, an entire wall had been knocked down or crumbled by age.

She felt something odd on one arm and raised it just enough to see without moving her head. Strips of her filthy dress had been torn away and several clean bandages were stark against her dirty skin. It hurt to raise her head even an inch so she didn’t push further, but restricting pressure against her side suggested more bandages.

Someone had brought her to this unfamiliar ruin, tended to her wounds, and built the fire.

The mystery required her attention, but pain swelled in her head. She closed her eyes against the light that made it worse.

***

Aithusa’s cry of fear and pain yanked her back into consciousness. Her wounds forced her to stop moving when she tried to rise and she bit back a cry of her own. Sweating and shivering with fever, she looked for the source of the sound, but she was still alone.

She listened for Aithusa but heard nothing but the fire beside her. The blaze never burned out. Every time she woke, which had happened a few times unless she’d dreamt it all, the fire was as full and roaring as ever, as if cast by a spell.

The dragon’s agonized call must have been a dream as well, a memory from their incarceration. In those final months, Aithusa had mewled in pain day and night having grown so much while inside their prison her limbs and wings pressed painfully against the cell walls.

Every cry broke her heart. Aithusa, pure of heart, was the brightest light in her otherwise twisted life of deception and malice. Everyone she had ever known had betrayed her in some way - her true father, Uther, king of Camelot; her adopted brother, Arthur; her maid, Guinevere; her half-sister, Morgause. Only Aithusa had always been true.

Her love of the young dragon had set the trap that ensnared them both.

High priestess of the old religion and the true queen of Camelot, Morgana had been certain she, along with the white dragon who had once saved her life, would die in that pit. Captured by a ruthless king, one who might have otherwise been an ally since he too plotted against Camelot, Morgana had been held prisoner for two long years. Chained for hours a day against the cell’s walls, denied the sun for months at a time, fed moldy gruel and rotted bread, Morgana had spent her time soothing her companion and plotting revenge against all who had betrayed her.

Until the day she decided they were leaving or would die in the effort.

Half mad with hunger and desperation, Morgana had convinced the dragon to climb despite the pain, scrabbling along with her from their forced tomb. Weakened from years of mistreatment, Morgana had been no true match for the guards above the living grave, but Aithusa fought alongside her. Together they had killed their captors but not the king who had imprisoned them.

Though wounded, and even though Aithusa wasn’t large or strong enough to carry Morgana far, they had flown north, away from their prison in Amata and further still from Camelot.

If they died in the process, at least they would die free.

She had no memory of what happened after their escape, but somehow she had ended up in this room. Now, after years of having the dragon close and sharing her thoughts, Morgana couldn’t hear Aithusa at all and feared the worst. She blinked back tears of heartbroken rage.

Someone would suffer dearly if the dragon was dead.

Aware enough to notice her surroundings, she noticed the changes in the room since the last time she’d awakened. The crumbled wall had been repaired, the larger stones replaced and the gaps filled with smaller rocks. Scorch marks darkened the seams. Tapestries thick enough to block the wind now covered the windows, though pale sunlight peeked through the sides. The room had been cleaned and the air smelled of sage and healing herbs.

Every thump of her heart pulsed pain in her body and head. She slowed her breathing and stilled her limbs, trying to push the pain away.

The effort exhausted her, and sleep beckoned, offering relief.

***

Morgana slept for what felt like days. Once, she thought she heard someone singing as they held her up and fed her broth, but she’d been too weak to open her eyes.

Now, the combined scent of wood smoke and a crisp night called to her. She opened her eyes.

Once again, the room had been transformed. A low table with a cup and a large pitcher now stood between her and the fire. Some of the windows now had glass installed and thick tall candles sat on several ledges, all lit and casting warm light across the gloom.

Those weren’t the only improvements.

Morgana’s grimy dress - her only clothes for years - was gone and replaced with a long loose white tunic. She no longer lay on a cot. A huge unadorned bed had taken its place, though she didn’t remember being moved.The cape that had been her blanket was gone, replaced by soft linens and a thick quilt, though she’d kicked the bedcovers aside in her sleep. Her dirt-caked skin had been washed and though her hair was still an endless riot of waves and curls, it was now clean.

Someone had not only treated her wounds, they had tended to her body without her knowledge or consent.

The disadvantage grated and her old friend fury returned to give her strength. Morgana might be wounded but she had never been easy prey and she wouldn’t start now.

The sound of footsteps on stairs grew louder. Someone approached with the unhurried gait of a confident fighter. Morgana ignored the lingering pain in her body as she pushed herself to one side and propped herself up with an elbow.

A tall woman with hair like the sun and clear eyes that shone bright in the firelight walked through the door and stopped when she saw Morgana awake.

“Good evening, Eshedd,” the woman said.

The word was unknown to her, but Morgana had more pressing concerns. The new arrival was dressed like a warrior though Morgana saw no weapons. Her dark green tunic and pants fit well enough to show her health and vigor. The thread of an unfamiliar sigil across the woman’s chest matched the color of the familiar floor-length blood red cape she wore. In her hands, she held a tray of something that smelled amazing along with a pot of tea and two cups.

The woman had the audacity to smile.

This must be the person who had touched Morgana without permission, who had tended her wounds but diminished her dignity.

Despite the hunger twisting her stomach and the gratitude she knew she should offer, Morgana wanted that smile gone.

Every muscle in her body screamed as she raised an arm and arched herself up. With a whispered curse she pushed all her will into moving the air in the room at the new arrival. The tray and all its contents clattered at the far wall and fell to the floor.

To Morgana’s surprise, the woman herself stood upright, unaffected by the attack.

Morgana had no energy left to try the spell again but still possessed her last remaining weapons - her wits and her tongue.

“Who are you?” She fought against a cough as she growled over her dry throat.“Where is Aithusa?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first jump into BOTH fandoms, so let me know if I'm hitting my marks. Also, give me a shout on Twitter: @virginiablk517


	3. TO BE UNSEEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara saves a dragon and learns more about her wounded patient after revisiting bad memories of her early years on Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I’m attempting to honor as much canon as possible, I’ve tacked on the Canon Divergent tag to be transparent about some of my changes. E.g., since Kara is impervious to bullets, it stands to reason that any pressure or spell Morgana might execute against her person would require phenomenally more power than she might against, say, Percival (the strongest of the knights of Camelot). Other spells might wear off sooner than Morgana would expect. And Kara in this AU wasn’t raised by the Danvers family, so that may push her slightly OOC.
> 
> As this is my first attempt with these fandoms, I’ll make mistakes, but I hope you’ll be patient…and forgiving.

** CHAPTER 3: TO BE UNSEEN **

Kara froze, shocked by the powerful display of what could only be magic.

She’d heard of magic wielders and had been mistaken for one more times than she could count, but she’d never seen magic before. True magic - not the product of simple laws of nature mistaken for magic. Most people on this planet had no understanding of any of the sciences.

The last thing she’d expected was for this woman to be some kind of sorcerer. Kara had thought the woman would awaken dazed and weak from her ordeal, confused about her surroundings. It had never once occurred to Kara that her help might be unwelcome.

The woman winced in pain and faltered from the effort she’d put into her attack. Though still recovering from grave wounds and weak from malnourishment, she held her arm up and stared at Kara in matching disbelief.

Kara realized too late she should have pretended to be affected.

Fear flashed across the woman’s face but then she visibly collected herself. Even in the low light of the wee hours, the pale green of her eyes enchanted Kara.

Heat bloomed in Kara’s cheeks when she realized she’d been staring too long.

“I am Kara.” Harsh experience had taught her to keep the rest of her name to herself.“And your dragon is in the stables.”

***

_The dragon’s anguished cries had echoed behind her as Kara had raced toward the castle to heal the woman in her arms. Mid-flight, she’d veered briefly from her path back to the castle when she felt the reverberation of the woman’s heartbeat through her own chest. She hadn’t been this close to a human in years._

_She’d corrected her course and flown as quickly as she could without causing harm. Kara landed in her room in the high tower and set the woman down on her cot._

_The threadbare dress had been soaked by blood in places then dried against the skin and in the wounds themselves, then soaked through again when movement had caused more bleeding. Kara saw through the clothes and gasped at the damage. Two deep punctures - one of them leaking a slow trickle of blood - and a dozen cuts all vied for immediate attention._

_To see the effects of such violence stirred Kara and she wiped away angry tears that kept her from the aid she wanted to offer. With ice cold water from the lake and the few linens she’d found that were close to clean, Kara got to work. One of the punctures required cauterization by a brief blast of her heat vision, and the woman screamed though she didn’t regain consciousness. Three other injuries needed stitches, but the rest Kara simply wrapped to encourage healing._

_Once Kara had tended the woman’s wounds well enough that they wouldn’t get any worse right away, she turned her attention to the dragon._

_Back in the forest clearing, the creature’s struggling had slowed but it still snapped at Kara’s approach. She’d never been this close to a dragon before and was awestruck at its majesty and savage grace._

_One pass of Kara’s deep vision revealed severe wounds from swords and arrows as well as the terrible break in one of the dragon’s legs. She knew lifting the beast was no challenge, but there was no way it wouldn’t struggle. If it fought her while she tried to carry it, they’d end up in the lake which would make the job that much harder and delay her return to the woman’s side._

_Kara didn’t want to leave her new human patient alone for long._

_She calculated the amount of force necessary to deliver a blow that would knock the dragon unconscious. With regret at the insult, Kara tapped the beast in the head, and when it collapsed, she lifted it and carried it back to the castle._

_More than once, she counted herself lucky that there was no one nearby to see her perform such feats._

*** 

“I want to see her.” Though it must have been agony, the woman pushed herself up again.

“You must rest. You’ll tear your stitches.”

“I don’t care,” she said, but pain knocked her back and her shallow breaths quickened.

“It’s the middle of the night, and she’s not even awake.” Kara took half a step towards the woman but the look she received made her stop.

Kara hadn’t liked the fear in the woman’s eyes before and didn’t want to see it again. “She was seriously wounded - one of her legs is broken.”

She wilted under the woman’s glare, so she crouched down to retrieve the tray and collect the broken crockery. Though it had taken Kara hours to make the soup she’d brought, soup that now painted the wall beside her and had soaked into her boots, lamenting its loss or chastising the woman for wasting it wasn’t as important as setting her at ease. “I set the leg and treated her other wounds. She’s resting.”

“I want to see her.” The woman’s voice was quieter now, but no less passionate.

Kara stacked all the broken bits on the tray and left it on the floor. She stood, uncertain but determined. “Why don’t I take you down there in the morning?”

“I don’t need your help.”

Kara didn’t give the lie any response, and the woman had the sense to look chagrined.

The woman clutched at the bed linens and looked around the room instead of acknowledging the care she’d already received. “What is this place? In which kingdom?”

Kara had theories about answers to both questions but didn’t want to get into a late night political discussion with this stranger. She shrugged. “I haven’t been here very long myself.”

“How did we get here?”

For the length of a heartbeat, Kara wished she’d never intervened. “It wasn’t easy.” Old wounds from painful lessons twinged as she reminded herself to say less.

The woman frowned and her eyes flashed back to Kara in anger.

Kara raised both hands to placate her. “I swear to Rao you’re safe here.”

The anger changed to consternation. “Who is Rao?”

Kara could have kicked herself. “I mean that no harm will come to you here. To either of you. I just wanted to help.”

The woman’s stomach interrupted loudly.

“You must be hungry,” Kara said. “I can bring more soup.” She’d made enough for both of them, but now only one serving remained. Her patient needed the other ration more than Kara did, so she’d just have to make more tomorrow.

She left before those piercing eyes pried secrets from her.

***

_Once she’d brought the dragon to the keep, Kara had worked quickly to set the broken leg. She’d never performed any kind of surgery on an animal before, regardless of its size, but the break would kill the dragon if left untreated._

_Soon after she finished, tormented cries from the tower made Kara race to the top of the castle. The woman who had fallen from the sky was asleep, but nightmares made her twist against her bandages. Kara tended to her again. This time, she noticed so much more about her charge._

_Though thin and gaunt, the woman looked almost regal.Poor treatment, grime and dirt hadn’t detracted from her beauty._

_Kara spoke soothing sounds in her native language almost against her will as she retied the bandages and tucked her cloak around the woman’s body._

_Now that the urgency had passed, Kara pondered the consequences of her actions as she replenished the wood supply for the fire. When the woman woke, she would no doubt have questions. In Kara’s haste to treat them both, she hadn’t thought of how she’d explain her intervention._

_She sighed as she stoked the fire with heat vision._

_The woman shivered despite the new blaze, and Kara assessed the room._

_The outer wall was half gone and the lack of windows allowed a brisk crosswind. The fire in the hearth might have provided enough warmth if the room had been intact, but like the rest of the castle, it was in ruins._

_It had been enough for her in her solitude, but this was no place for healing._

_Kara quickly formed a plan to rebuild the room. As long as she stayed out of sight, she could conduct many of the repairs without revealing her powers._

_Every time she lifted a boulder in place, she checked first to make sure the sky woman was still asleep. When the main sections of the wall had been restored, Kara filled the gaps with smaller stones then heated them to magma for a proper seal before blowing freezing breath to cool them. The room grew steamy as the night passed, but the open windows allowed for fast ventilation._

_Once that job was complete, Kara found herself staring at the exposed openings of the windows. A trip to the first floor solved the problem. The ragged tapestries that had draped against the great hall below now hung over the window gaps. She replenished and stoked the fire, and left to check on the dragon._

_When Kara returned, a second assessment had her shaking her head. It wasn’t enough and the supplies on the island were limited. She’d have to venture to the nearest place with the many things she needed._

_After another glance at her sleeping patient, and before she could change her mind, Kara leapt into the early morning sky and flew south._

_***_

_The village looked the same though Kara hadn’t been here in years. Little more than a wide spot in the road, it was large enough to merit a pub and a church which were prioritized by the inhabitants in that order._

_She’d been fifteen when she’d first come here, two years after her pod had landed on the planet. By then, she’d learned how to blend in as best as she could, but one chance interaction with a man who’d tried to take advantage of her had escalated quickly.He’d been twice her size but she’d broken his jaw and both his arms. Even she had been surprised at the damage._

_Kara had been wary of hurting anyone else. When they couldn’t beat her, when they couldn’t cut her, when they couldn’t burn her, they’d tied her in chains in a dark stinking cellar to await judgment. Her human appearance hadn’t stopped the village elders from summoning a knight-errant to have her prosecuted for sorcery. After she’d cried herself out, she’d escaped before her judge’s arrival._

_That was the first time she’d ever flown anywhere._

_Kara pushed the memories aside and focused on her goal._

_Parts of the castle required repair if she was going to provide the kind of care the woman and the dragon needed. While she could have gone in any direction, this village was closest.Though the castle was leagues away, she could hear the dragon moaning and knew the woman still slept._

_A few dozen families lived here in the mud and muck, but there was a mill and a blacksmith who both took advantage of the proximity to the river to transport goods. The miller was a head taller than Kara and twice as wide. Much of his girth was fat, but he had a core of muscle he put to use when crossed._

_She remembered him well though he didn’t recognize her._

_He reeked of sour mead and hadn’t bathed in who knew how long. The previous night must have been busy at the pub because he was too bleary to look at her too closely._

_“What’s a small thing like you need from a miller?” He leered at her, bloodshot eyes out of focus._

_Her long list made him angry._

_“And who’s going to pay for all that?”_

_Kara offered all her silver. She had gold, but it would attract too much attention in a village this small. It was bad enough that she’d paid up front and come alone._

_He dumped her coin purse into his palm and ran a finger through the pile._

_Anger turned to confusion. “Where’s your wagon?’_

_Kara ignored the question. “There’s a clearing in the forest past the bend of the river. Can you get everything there by mid-afternoon?”_

_The mystery was too much for him to process and he was still focused on the coins in his hand. “For this kind of coin, I’d carry it there myself.”_

_***_

_It took several trips under the cover of night to fly everything from the clearing to the castle, but once all the materials were on the island, Kara was able to work quickly._

_First she fortified the stable so the dragon could be more comfortable while recuperating. Next she built pieces of a bedframe and assembled them in the tower room while the woman slept restlessly in the cot._

_Whatever the woman had been through gave her nightmares. She woke up screaming more than once but never noticed Kara or her surroundings. For days, the woman’s fever kept her asleep or too delirious to come to her senses. The wounds healed slowly and the bad dreams persisted, sometimes filled with screams that woke Kara and sent her running._

_Once, she found the woman crying in her sleep and the thought of whatever torments she might have endured reminded Kara of her own._

_“Eshedd, what happened to you?” Kara felt herself close to tears as she wiped the woman’s brow. She sat beside the bed for hours, even after the woman’s sleep eased._

_The rhythm of the days changed with Kara’s new duties and her patients distracted her from her failure to find Kal-El. She woke and visited the woman first, then the dragon. The lake held enough fish to feed the animal but it meant that Kara did a lot of fishing. The small dragon ate a great deal._

_Then she checked on her experiments in her makeshift lab, always listening for changes in either of her patients. She walked the island’s perimeter every afternoons and her evenings on the ramparts still held the beauty of sunset, but she didn’t think as much about Kal-El or Krypton._

_Instead, she pondered the woman within the castle walls._

*** 

When Kara returned to the tower room, she held a smaller tray. This time, the soup was in a large crude mug, one that could be wielded with one hand.

“First thing in the morning,” the woman said.

Kara imagined that was as close to an apology as she was going to get.

“Of course.” She wanted to offer some concession, something to change the tone of their conversation. “I’m sure the beast will be pleased to see you.”

The woman scoffed. “Aithusa is no beast,” she said, emphasizing the name. “She is the greatest dragon in the Five Kingdoms.”

Kara supposed that might be true. She’d only ever seen one other and that had been at some distance.

“And you?” Kara asked. She set the tray down on the table.

The woman arched a perfect dark eyebrow and her lips twisted in a half-smile. “Am I a beast? There are some who might say so.”

A wave of warmth passed through Kara at the sight of that smile and the resonance of the woman’s voice vibrated through Kara’s skin and sank into her marrow. What little the woman had said had been enough to stir something low in Kara’s body. This time, the blush couldn’t be contained and Kara was grateful for the lower light. “I mean, what’s your name?”

The woman stilled and took a long time to answer.

“Morgana.”

The way she said her own name made it sound like much more information should follow, but she said nothing else.

Not that it was necessary. Kara had heard of Morgana and none of it was good. “I see.” Her cool tone belied the sensations Morgana’s voice caused - ones Kara tried to suppress.

“Ah. You know of me, then.”

Kara found it hard to believe that this woman, who so clearly cared for the dragon recovering in the stables, was capable of burning peasant crops to make a point. Perhaps some of those stories were untrue. Villagers were prone to exaggeration and were downright vindictive when magic wielders were involved.

She wasn’t fool enough to trust Morgana blindly, but she could extend benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

A silence stretched between them as Kara stared into Morgana’s cool green eyes.

Finally, Morgana relaxed back on the bed, though she kept her eyes on Kara. Though she hid it well, her breathing was labored from her expenditure of energy. “What did you call me earlier?”

Caught, Kara fought against the urge to look away. “Eshedd.”

Morgana stared back for so long Kara counted double digits of heartbeats. Finally, her eyebrows arched again in question.

Kara cleared her throat. “It means ‘woman of the sky’.”

“In what language?”

The old habit of keeping the truth to herself resurfaced. “One no one speaks anymore from a place that no longer exists.”

Morgana stared at her, and Kara knew she’d said too much. Even fevered and incapacitated, this woman was sharp and intelligent. Formidable.

Kara should be wary, but all she felt was the urge to learn more.

When the silence stretched again, Kara realized the woman - Morgana - wouldn’t drink her soup while Kara watched. She stopped on her way out to fetch the bent tray with broken crockery.

“Your bandages should be changed in the morning,” she said by way of farewell.

Morgana looked like she wanted to refuse any additional care but finally nodded. Then a fierce resolve set in her delicate jaw. “Never again touch me without my permission.”

It was as much a warning as a request. Kara had only meant to help remove the traces of Morgana’s ordeal and treat her injuries but it had still been inappropriate. It would make treatment more difficult if Morgana lost consciousness or suffered more delirium, but Kara would respect her wishes.

Kara walked around the room and extinguished a few of the candles. “Rest well,” she said when she stopped by the door.

Morgana nodded but stayed silent.

“If you need anything at all, just call out. I’ll be right down the hall.” Kara didn’t mention that she’d hear Morgana’s voice if she were anywhere within a hundred leagues.

Morgana didn’t speak her thanks, but her eyes did.

The other room in the same wing was as dilapidated as the tower room had been before Kara’s renovations and the fireplace wasn’t as large. Still, Kara didn’t need much in the way of amenities. She ignored the cot she’d moved in here and sank into her usual chair.

Her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t eaten though she’d fed both her charges. Tomorrow, she’d have to get more supplies. Her meager stash of coin was rapidly shrinking now that she was caring for the new arrivals.

In the other room, Morgana finished her soup and almost instantly fell back to sleep. The dragon, too, had succumbed to exhaustion.

Though the new moon shed no light, Kara saw every ripple on the lake, every leaf and needle of every tree. She stared into the night, uneasy with new information.

Morgana, the dark queen of Camelot, was under her care. Unfathomable.

As she had so many nights before, Kara sat in her chair by a fire, her cloak wrapped around her body. Now the night was filled with new sounds, not only the rustle of predators and prey in the forest or the swish and splash of the fish in the lake.

This time when she closed her eyes, two sets of heartbeats besides her own offered quiet company.


	4. WINTER'S CAULDRON

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana doesn't trust the woman who has tended her wounds but Aithusa's growing affection for Kara is unbearable. Winter passes as Morgana tries to gain the upper hand, but how can she get answers when this stranger resists her every attempt?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse the delay. It was important to get Morgana’s POV *right*. Not sure I hit the mark perfectly, but I’m glad I took the time to get this much (even though it’s a huge chapter). Hope you’re enjoying the story. Be forewarned: we’re looking at about eight chapters total and then a long epilogue. On to the update…and thanks so much for sticking with me!

**CHAPTER 4:** **WINTER’S CAULDRON**

The cold dew of morning greeted Morgana when she woke. Eyes still closed, her first thought was that she must still be asleep, dreaming of a soft bed and the quiet music of birdsong. Her second thought came after she tried to move, when the screaming pain of her chest and belly wounds stopped her breath.

The guard whose sword was responsible for most of her cuts and one deep stab into her shoulder had been the first to die. She might not have managed to kill him on her own, but Aithusa had bitten off his sword-wielding arm at the elbow. Morgana had finished him off with a driving push of her powers, snapping his neck against a stone wall. Another guard had stabbed at her with an unfinished iron pike before she’d cursed him to death, and others had scratched and clawed at her skin in their attempts to subdue her.

Morgana had used every spell she could imagine to fight against her attackers, even those that sapped the energy of those around her only to be repurposed against their sources. Aithusa’s strength was too depleted to create much in the way of fire, but what little the dragon managed in addition to her savage teeth and claws helped to free them both. They’d been so desperate for escape that Morgana had climbed on the small dragon’s back even though flight should have been impossible.

Now Morgana wondered how far they’d traveled across the skies from Sarrum’s kingdom. A few of the birdcalls outside were unfamiliar which gave her pause. No matter how comfortable the bed, she did not know where she was and could not let down her guard here.

The woman who had treated her wounds might have said she was safe, but Morgana was not safe anywhere. Morgana would only believe what she saw with her own eyes or sensed with her mind and spirit. She did not trust this woman, this Kara who would not answer her questions.

Once Morgana found Aithusa, they were leaving this place and would find somewhere to heal. She chose not to consider the possibility their recuperation could take place right where she was.

As if summoned, Kara appeared in the doorway. A pair of slippers was tucked under one arm and she held two long lengths of wood in one hand, both with fabric-covered arcs at each end. Her other hand held a wad of more fabric, and a long dark woolen cloak lay across her elbow.

“Good morning,” she said but didn’t step inside the room. “If you’ll allow it, I can change your bandages.”

“They’re fine,” Morgana said, though they probably did need tending.

Kara frowned and matched Morgana’s stare with her own. She finally sighed and leaned the crutches on the wall just inside the entrance. It seemed she intended to respect not only the boundaries Morgana had spoken, but also their intent.

“You said you wanted to visit the dragon first thing,” Kara said as she set the thick slippers on the floor next to the crutches then tucked the cloak into one crutch crook. “I thought these might help.”

Morgana didn’t speak again or move.

“I’ll wait out here until you’re ready.” Kara turned her back and stepped out of sight.

Perhaps it took longer on her own for Morgana to rise from the bed and limp toward the crutches at the door than it might have had Kara helped, but so be it. When the pain threatened to knock her to her knees and the bed called for her return, Morgana summoned her anger - an old companion - to help keep her upright.

Kara led the way without rushing and made no comment about how long it took Morgana to navigate the long hall to a stairwell lit by early morning sun. She meandered down the stairs at what must have been a slower pace than usual as behind her Morgana slowly sank her weight painfully onto each stair.

Every moment Morgana thought of giving up, her heart panged with worry for Aithusa. She had to see her, to make sure that this woman hadn’t hurt the dragon. So many times, Morgana had been baited by kindness, by generosity, by false affection. This woman might present open aid but plan to kill them both the moment they let down their guard.

And yet, Morgana sensed no threat.

The stairwell was a twisted spiral of rusty iron, moss and mold-covered stone. It grew darker and more slippery the lower they descended and reminded her of the lower levels of Camelot.

Morgana prepared to defend herself should Kara lead her to a dungeon and not the stables. She would not be imprisoned again, and if this woman had chained Aithusa to another cell wall, Morgana wouldn’t rest until she’d found a way to kill Kara.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs and turned towards a corridor bright with morning light, Morgana realized her concern was unwarranted. The corridor’s path led to the stable, with no door separating one from the other.

Unlike the dank moldy smell of the stairwell, the stables smelled of freshly turned dirt and hay. Though there was room enough for dozens of horses, most of the stalls had fallen into disrepair. One section, though, had been cleared and its pens dismantled, and a shoulder-height wall had been built between the dragon and the open stable doors. When shut, the doors were thick enough to block the elements from the stable and provide some insulation against the autumn chill.

Pressed into a nest of fresh hay, Aithusa lay with her head half-tucked under a wing. She had curled up in one corner as best as could be managed considering her predicament.One leg was solidly braced against movement with an intricate contraption of wood and wire. It stood out against her small torso. With her wings curled around her, Aithusa was not much larger than a small horse or a large pony.

As she had so many times before, Morgana cursed Sarrum for the damage the dragon had endured. That such a generous, loving magical creature had been treated so terribly -

Morgana clenched her fingers around the wood of her crutches.

“She is improving,” Kara said as if trying to appease her. “She eats three times a day but sleeps the rest of the time.”

The dragon’s color was better than Morgana had ever seen. Aithusa would always be small, so stunted had her development been, but the sickly red rimming around her eyes was gone. Her breathing was deep and rhythmic. She looked warm and content, despite her injury.

Kara had cared for her well.

Morgana noticed that much work had been done and quickly - the old stables struck down and stacked to the side, the old muck and rotted hay shoved outside in a large pile visible through the open doors - but she’d seen no trace of any other people here in the castle. Kara appeared to be here alone, but couldn’t have completed all the improvements herself.

“Where are all your men?”

Confusion wrinkled Kara’s brow and several moments passed before she spoke. “What - what men?”

Morgana gestured at the new beams and cleared hay. “The ones who did all this work.”

Kara bit her lower lip and looked everywhere but back at Morgana. “I - um,” she began.

Aithusa stirred and Morgana felt - as she had so many times before - the brush across her own consciousness that signaled the dragon was waking.

Morgana reached forward then gasped, the motion having stretched at the wound in her belly. She fought against a hiss but closed the distance between them. By the time Aithusa opened her eyes with a whimper, Morgana stood flush against her side, leaning into her neck.

Though she wasn’t yet sure about their well-being in this place, Morgana whispered low to the dragon so Kara wouldn’t hear. “We are safe, my kindred.” She blinked away an unwelcome tear. “We are free.”

The dragon nuzzled her head at Morgana’s thighs. Then to Morgana’s surprise, Aithusa turned her head towards Kara and tilted it down.

Kara smiled in restrained delight and reached out a hand to gently pet the dragon’s head.

Morgana wanted to stab her but didn’t have a weapon. No one should treat a dragon like a dog.

And then Aithusa made a soft sound of contentment, lowered her head back over her front legs and closed her eyes.

Morgana hid her surprise that Aithusa liked Kara.

The urge to hurt Kara didn’t ease, but the silence lengthened. No matter how well Aithusa fared, Morgana would not thank this woman for her care, not when she had no idea of the price.

Kara cleared her throat. “If you’re ready to break your fast, we can go to the kitchen now.” She was conciliatory, almost bashful, but Morgana sensed strength at her core. Her eyes spoke of a hard life but her manner was kind.

Morgana had fallen prey to such kindness before and it would not sway her now, but hunger didn’t require a treaty. She motioned for Kara to lead the way, then reached out to touch Aithusa one last time before she followed.

**X - X - X - X - X**

The kitchen was the cleanest room by far, though it held little in the way of amenities that might be expected in a castle this size. All the shelves and surfaces were bare save a small table near the cooking fire. In one corner, a stack of rusted out pots, broken cutlery and chairs piled high as if they’d been sorted but not yet removed.

“I hope you don’t mind more soup.” Kara served two bowls and set them on the large wooden block table in the kitchen’s midst, then fetched thin wooden plates with small individual loaves of fresh bread.

She set a stool for Morgana then moved away when Morgana didn’t immediately sit down.

Despite her fatigue and pain, Morgana didn’t sit until Kara did. They ate in silence until the soup was gone. Kara ate three servings after Morgana declined a second helping.

Then Kara spoke words that sent Morgana’s heart thundering like a score of horses.

“I’m afraid that leg break is serious enough that the dragon should probably winter here while she heals,” Kara said.

Shock kept Morgana speechless. They couldn’t stay here. She needed to leave this place, to get back to lands closer to Camelot. To find out what had happened to her countrymen and allies and advance her plans to kill Arthur, to find Emrys and destroy him before he had a chance to destroy her, to bring Guinevere and Merlin low.

Kara wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “If you have someone who might be looking for you, I’d be happy to try to get a message to them.”

Warning bells sounded in Morgana’s mind. “Who have you told that I’m here?”

Kara would pay dearly if she was relaying messages to Morgana’s enemies.

“No one. I -“

“Have you sent word to Camelot?”

Kara’s eyes widened in shock. “No. No, of course not. I swear -“

“I care not at all for the word of a stranger, not if you think you can turn me over to Arthur or send me back to Sarrum.”

Anger flashed across Kara’s eyes before it faded into sadness. “I swore I would not harm you or the -“

Morgana tightened her hand around the spoon, ready to wield it as a weapon.

Kara sat upright and looked offended. “I have told no one you’re here. I have done nothing but help you. I don’t expect your undying gratitude, but I will be treated with the civility any…person might extend to another.”

She sat in a way that communicated she would not be moved, that she could defend herself against any threat and emerge victorious, even though she hadn’t raised a hand. Kara reminded Morgana of the knights she’d known, the ones who presented themselves as stalwart and true.The knights of Camelot had turned out to be bastards for the most part, but Kara didn’t give Morgana that impression.

Kara was unlike anyone Morgana had ever met. Not even the Druids had been this centered, this outwardly genuine while exuding an unmovable inner strength. Morgana didn’t bother to compare Kara to the commoners of Camelot. Those people had suckled for years at the teat of Uther’s pretentious benevolence while Morgana’s people - her true magic-wielding people - had starved and hidden in hovels or lived in little more than robbers camps for years.

“If you truly want to leave, I’ll…” Kara pushed her plate away and sighed. “I’ll take good care of the dragon until she’s ready to fly on her own.”

Morgana’s heart skipped a beat. No matter what plans she might have, she would not leave Aithusa alone with a stranger.

When she tried to lean back and match Kara’s posture with her own, the muscles in her belly screamed. She’d been upright too long.

She ignored Kara promises and decided it was answer enough.

The climb back to her room felt endless and Kara’s patience grated on Morgana’s nerves. When Morgana was healthy again, Kara would pay for her presumption, no matter how much care she’d provided.

Once back in her room, Morgana sat on the bed, hiding exhausted relief.

“I’ll bring you more water,” Kara said.

“No need,” Morgana said, but Kara was already gone.

Alone, Morgana sagged against the need to keep a brave front. She crawled back into bed, slippers, cloak and all. The fire had died but it was too late to try to stoke it. She tugged the bedcovers tighter and closed her eyes.

Pain and desolation and loneliness scratched at her insides until the tears slipped down her cheeks. With each slow, shallow breath, she settled deeper into the bed, drawing strength into her spirit from the sounds of the ticking embers, the morning wind, the call of the birds outside. She felt for the rhythm of the earth that would heal her over time if she could be still and give herself over to the true nature of things. As it had always been, and always would be.

Heat woke her from her dozing.

Kara must have come in and stoked the fire even though she was not welcome in this room. Morgana needed sanctuary, and if she was to stay in this place over the winter months, she would have it. Yet she did not sense another presence in the room. Whatever Kara had done, she was not here now.

When Morgana opened her eyes to confirm her suspicions, Kara was indeed gone though she’d left a bucket of fresh water nearby and set the bandages Morgana had declined earlier on the table.

The fire blazed as brightly as always. Morgana went back to sleep.

X - X - X - X - X

That night, she woke with a scream. Another cry followed when her fear jerked her upright, the movement pulling at her injured flesh.

She heard a rush of wind through the castle but then all was calm.

Emrys. The dream had been different this time. The old wizard had cast his spells not only at her, but also at Aithusa, who had shrieked in agony before dying at Morgana’s feet.

Morgana let the tears fall but forced herself to resolution. She would find and kill Emrys before he could kill her.

First she had to get away from here, wherever here was.

“Whose castle is this?” Morgana demanded the next morning as she hobbled into the kitchen.

Kara set steaming bowls of stew at one end of the table. “I’m not sure,” she said, not looking at Morgana.

“Well, you must know something.”

Instead of sitting on her stool, Kara stepped back, hands at her sides, her body centered over her feet as if she were preparing for a physical attack. “I only know that it was abandoned long before I arrived.”

“And where did you come from?”

Pain washed over Kara’s face, so apparent it gave Morgana pause. Kara abruptly stepped forward to pick up her bowl and turned toward the kitchen fire. She dumped the bowl’s contents back in the stewpot. “Please, eat as much of this as you wish. There’s plenty.”

She was gone before Morgana could think of another word.

For the next few days, Morgana found hot food waiting whenever she ventured into the kitchen but no Kara. Aithusa’s stalls were mucked twice a day and it was evident that she was being fed and watered, but her caretaker had disappeared. And every day when Morgana returned to her room, the woodpile had been restocked and the fire relit.

She might have forced the issue of the room’s boundary, but she couldn’t lift wood with her injury.

A week later, Kara was in the stables when Morgana arrived. Her back was turned to the door as she pitchforked hay into Aithusa’s stall.

Morgana had regained enough strength to try another tactic. She muttered a truth spell.

Kara paused in her work, but didn’t turn around.

“Where are we exactly?” Morgana asked as she stepped forward to greet Aithusa. The dragon nuzzled her legs, gentle despite her size.

“On an island in the middle of a lake,” Kara said. She walked over to a trough on the far wall and lifted a large bucket of water with one arm. How someone not much bigger than Morgana herself could be so strong defied logic.

“Which lake?” Morgana said. The spell usually resulted in a overflow of information. Maybe she was weaker than she’d thought if her spell was so impotent she had to keep asking questions.

Kara set the bucket down closer to Aithusa, then shrugged. “I don’t know.”

But when she looked at Morgana, her eyes were hooded as if she were holding something back.

Summoning more power from her weak reserves, Morgana pushed again. “Tell me where we are.”

Kara fetched the pitchfork then stomped away in irritation. “Some place where you can both rest and recover safely.”

Aithusa interrupted with a cry, and while Morgana soothed her, Kara walked through the stable doors to the outside courtyard and slammed them behind her.

The days grew shorter as they turned into weeks. Morgana’s health improved as the moon changed, but Aithusa took longer to heal. They both slept more than they didn’t, and Kara was scarce more often than not.

It might have been Morgana’s incessant questions that kept her away. Whenever their paths crossed, Morgana tried another coercion spell but Kara deflected her answers and then found somewhere else to be.

“How did we come to be here on the island?”

They were in the kitchen again, after what had become their morning visit to Aithusa’s stall.

Kara stood without answering and began sorting the logs on the woodpile.

“I didn’t see a wagon in the stables,” Morgana said. “And which way is the dock?”

Her back again turned, Kara stood brushing off her hands against her thighs.

“Sometimes there are boats on the lake,” she said, her voice so quiet Morgana had to lean forward to listen.

Once again, Kara didn’t finish her food. “I’d better fetch more wood.”

And once again, Morgana didn’t see Kara for the next few days.

When she felt well enough to make the attempt, Morgana tried a healing spell on Aithusa, but the dragon was annoyed by her effort and resisted. The dragon would let Kara tend to her, but wouldn’t allow Morgana to heal her. Morgana sulked for days before the plaintive call of the dragon’s mind to her own was too much to ignore. When she visited again, Aithusa’s petulance was pathetic enough to make her surrender to the fate of a full winter here on the island.

Yet while there was no apparent threat to either her or the dragon, she did not feel at ease.

As soon as Morgana was down to one crutch and could walk further than the stables and back without needing to rest for hours afterward, she took to exploring the castle. By then, harsh winter storms pummeled the castle walls, raging outside while Morgana shambled down to the great hall, the smaller gathering rooms and servants quarters. One corridor was blocked by a huge slab of stone, taller than Morgana and wider than her arm-span. She wondered how it had been maneuvered into the corridor at all.

Many of the rooms were empty and abandoned, swept clean and stripped of contents, but a few still held old worn furniture used by people long gone - chairs with moldy cushions, beds with dusty moth-eaten linens.

The further she got from her room, the greater the disrepair, as if someone had started cleaning the castle from top to bottom but had started in the tower. Yet the concept of Kara doing all this work was baffling.

On her way back to her room she paused at the only other doorway in the tower.

This room was half the size of hers and the fireplace was smaller, but it was far emptier. A lone chair sat in front of the cold fireplace, shifted sideways and aimed at the room’s only window. A familiar cot pressed against the far wall, but it had no linens.

It appeared that Kara never used the bed, and spent all her time in this room in the chair.

Drawn inside, Morgana raised a hand to stroke the cloak lying across the chair back. When she did, she noticed a piece of parchment tucked under it on the chair’s seat. She shifted her weight and rested her crutch against the chair’s arm.

The moment she pulled the parchment out far enough to reveal its markings, she gasped.

Aithusa’s broken bone and the surgery to heal it were drawn in exquisite detail. So was the elaborate design of the brace Kara had built to secure the dragon’s limb, as well as several attempts at the next phases of the brace, ones with fewer pieces that might allow for greater movement as it healed. All over the parchment, in fine delicate strokes, intricate script in an unrecognizable language labeled each drawing and filled the margins.

Kara had given some hint of her intelligence in her manner and speech, but this - this was something else altogether.

It seemed her acumen matched her strength, and Morgana needed to find out if she was a foe or a potential ally.

Direct questions only yielded more dissembling. Morgana would have to try something else.

X - X - X - X - X

When the skies briefly cleared one afternoon, Morgana ventured outside.

A worn path sloped gently toward the water’s edge and Morgana smiled into the brisk wind. It wasn’t far to a slim beach of worn pebbles, and she followed the shore around the island hoping to learn something that might tell her where she was.

It was a short walk. Before long, she had made her way around the entire island. Though the beach didn’t extend all the way around and some places had overgrown brush that couldn’t be navigated with a crutch, she still made it back to the castle path in about an hour.

And she still had no idea where she was.

“Where do the supplies come from?” Morgana asked the next morning when she noticed a full sack of flour on the kitchen table that hadn’t been there the day before. “There’s no dock.”

Kara rose from her stool and headed for the door as if she had some urgent task that she’d forgotten. “I…have arrangements with a local merchant.”

She left without saying more.

Though proud of her skill at stealth, Morgana found it impossible to watch Kara unobserved. The woman was either gone, off on one of her daily walks outdoors, or fully present and attentive to anything Morgana might require.

If she tried to sneak up on Kara, she’d only find Kara waiting attentively to greet her as if her arrival had been anticipated. A stunning spell might work, but then Morgana thought of the drawing in Kara’s room and the empty unused cot. When she realized she was trying not to hurt Kara, she cursed her own failing and headed for the lakeside.

Crouching on the beach, she sifted through the pebbles until she found what she was looking for. When she came back into the castle through the stables, Aithusa grunted as if she disapproved.

Morgana ignored her.

At breakfast the next morning, she set an agate in the center of the kitchen table. Kara glanced at it - and Morgana - warily, but made no comment.

Then Kara blinked as if her eyes were suddenly heavy, and rubbed a hand across the embroidery on the chest of her tunic.

The unfamiliar insignia called to Morgana and was as good a place as any to begin.

“I don’t recognize your crest,” Morgana said.

Kara took a deep breath before she spoke. “You wouldn’t. It’s not from anywhere near here.”

“Where are you from?” Morgana fought a smile.

“Nowhere.” Kara’s voice was heavy with a sadness that sank her shoulders.

Morgana tsked. “Come now. Everyone is from somewhere.”

“Not me.” Kara shook her head as if to clear it, but closed her eyes and her speech slurred. “Not if the place doesn’t exist anymore.”

Morgana bit back a sigh. Kara was more cryptic now that she was under the spell’s influence.

“Kara,” she said, her voice low and bewitching. “Where are you from?”

Kara moaned and leaned over with her head in her hands. After a moment, she sat up, blinked with a start and gave her head another shake.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice normal. “I’m not feeling well.”

Kara stood slowly. If she remembered any of their conversation, stilted and unrevealing as it had been, she gave no indication. “I hope you enjoy your day.”

Thwarted once again, Morgana hid how infuriated she was by the failure, certain that admitting it would give Kara some advantage.

After Kara left, Morgana tossed the agate into the cooking fire. A small pop and flare hissed before the fire returned to normal.

The only place on the island where she could not see the castle was in the small wilds behind it and Morgana passed her afternoons in its confines whatever the weather. As she learned the cadence and pulse of the unknown ground beneath her, she pondered the puzzle of Kara. She had been wrong before in her judgment of people, but neither she could find any tangible reason not to trust the woman.

Morgana had not yet figured out how the supplies were getting to the island. She had a suspicion that Kara controlled their arrival, no matter what she said about unscheduled and unplanned deliveries but any question that didn’t involve Aithusa’s care or the next meal was met with silence or misdirection.

The problem was a fine distraction from the rage of inactivity and the helplessness at Aithusa’s slow healing. Morgana put her theory to the test when she visited Kara late one drizzly morning on the ramparts.

“Kara, have you seen any wild clary anywhere on the island?” Morgana knew there was none. She’d combed every inch of ground herself and memorized what was available and what wasn’t.

Kara didn’t look at her, instead staring out at the lake while she worried her lower lip with her teeth. “Um, I’m not sure. I’ll look on my walk today.”

“Thank you,” Morgana said. Perhaps polite genteelness would get the girl to open up since spellcraft produced no answers.

At times, Kara carried herself in a way to suggest she was the same age as Morgana. Other times, she acted like she’d barely experienced womanhood. More than once, Kara had stood far too close as if she craved contact or affection, but then blushed and stepped away.

The next day, Morgana found several bundles of wild clary on the floor outside the door to her room.

Yet Morgana could not let loose the idea that Kara was hiding something significant. Morgana had lived with subterfuge her entire life and could sense it like…like danger or opportunity or the path of the wind. If Kara thought she could hide her secrets from Morgana forever, she was mistaken.

Those who thought they could gain the upper hand against Morgana had failed or suffered dearly in the attempt.

She forgot the challenge of Kara for the moment as she considered those highest on her list of those deserving retribution.

Sarrum in particular would die screaming or choke to death on his own blood.

X - X - X - X - X

When midwinter arrived, Morgana felt it in her womb, like a low pulse calling her to battle. She was no stranger to the dark and long ago learned not to fear it. Instead, the long nights felt like time had slowed to a crawl. The interminable inaction equated opportunity wasted. It grated on her nerves and fed her irritation, but she pushed it aside. She’d waited this long for another chance at fulfilling her destiny. One more season wouldn’t stop the inevitable. Morgana would rule Camelot.

As she stood at one of the wide windows in her room, she closed her eyes and breathed in the cold of the snow with a hint of juniper. The sound of footsteps made her open her eyes and turn away from the window just in time to see Kara’s striking appearance in her doorway.

“Good evening, Morgana,” she said, warmth and hesitance in equal measure.

Kara was freshly cleaned, her long blonde hair still wet at her temples. She wore something different from her usual clothes. The long red cloak was the same but her tunic and pants were dark green with a sheen to them. They clung to her at the thigh and shoulder, accenting her strength and vigor. Her worn everyday brown boots had been replaced by polished black leather that came to her knees.

Morgana resisted the flutter in her chest and fought to pay more attention to the items resting in Kara’s large, capable hands.

A huge green candle, wide as Kara’s waist and high as the length of her forearm, sat on a circular silver tray. A wreath of juniper and cedar cones rested at its base, and five thick wicks poked from its top.

“After whatever ordeals you’ve been through, you’re owed - well, I mean, I know you did not want to stay here,” Kara said. “And you shouldn’t have to endure anything you don’t want, but…”

She tilted her head and strands of her hair fell forward. “I don’t know about the traditions in your family, and I -“

The sadness washed over her eyes again. It made Morgana angry, though not at Kara.

Kara lifted the tray. “I want to offer you this Yule gift.”

Morgana didn’t move.

“Please.”

Morgana knew that words had power, but she’d never considered the potency of that one word in particular.

She nodded and Kara carried the tray into the room.

Now that Kara had stepped closer to the fire, the dark circles under her eyes and the pallor of her skin made something within Morgana twist. Was it poor sleep or winter’s dark that eked some of the strength from those strong shoulders?

“How…” Morgana searched for a word that fit. “Thoughtful.”

Kara smiled though it didn’t reach her eyes. She set the candle on Morgana’s bedside table. The width of the tray extended beyond the table’s sides.

“I’ve already fed Aithusa.” When Kara stood upright again, she wiped her palms on the sides of her pants.

She couldn’t possibly think that Morgana had some gift to offer in return, could she?

Kara cleared her throat to speak again and Morgana realized that something more was coming.

“I’ve made something special for dinner and I was hoping you’d join me.”

This time, Kara didn’t drop her eyes, and if Morgana suspicions were correct, refusing wasn’t an option.

Morgana sighed and followed Kara through the castle to the kitchen.

The meal was simple but delicious - a hearty stew with fresh meat and tender roots and greens accompanied by a rich red wine. Morgana wanted to ask where the meat and the wine had come from but was too famished to care. Kara made an attempt or two at conversation, but Morgana didn’t answer. After years of being ostracized, persecuted, pursued, misled, captured, tortured and always, always underestimated, Morgana kept her own counsel and revealed none of herself to anyone. Not anymore. Never again.

Yet though the meal was mostly silent, the whole experience wasn’t unpleasant.

When the wine led her back to her bed earlier than she’d planned, Morgana decided just this once to give in to the satisfaction of a sort, to set aside her aspirations and plans for retaliation, and let the warm sensation lull her to sleep.

X - X - X - X - X

A month after solstice, Morgana set the crutch aside for good. If she wasn’t as strong as she’d been during her formative years at Camelot, she was certainly in better condition than she’d been in a dungeon cell.

In time, Kara replaced Aithusa’s larger brace with a smaller one that allowed for some movement. Aithusa could walk in a small circle in the courtyard outside the stable, but her limp was so pronounced, she often went back inside for more rest.

More than once, Morgana considered leaving her behind but the ache in her heart was unbearable. She cursed herself for her weakness.

“She’ll be better soon,” Kara would say, much to Morgana’s annoyance. “It’s really very impressive that she’s healed so much so quickly.”

Morgana murmured a curse that had no effect, then cursed for a different reason as she set off for the darker woods of the island despite the cold weather.

After much deliberation, Morgana decided that whatever it was that Kara was keeping from her wasn’t about Morgana herself.

The sadness on Kara’s face was telling in those moments when she didn’t realize she was being watched. Morgana recognized bone-deep sorrow and the reticence of bad experience, but could sense no malice.

When the snows gave way to cold rains, signaling winter’s eventual end though spring was still far off, Morgana found herself looking at Kara with new eyes.

The slower pace of the winter months must have encouraged Kara to leave her hair down more often and soft blonde waves cascaded over her shoulder and down to the small of her back. Her pale lips and eyes blue as a clear winter sky held mysteries that captured Morgana’s attention. Her sleek muscles were covered by her clothes but not hidden, and her confident centered stride hinted at other strengths.

One afternoon, weak sunlight peeked through the clouds and Kara stood on the ramparts as she often did when there was no rain or snow.

Her arresting beauty had once again distracted Morgana from her plans. Then again, Kara’s possession of incomparable strength and other undiscovered skills might aid in the fruition of those plans, if only Morgana could persuade her.

Spells wouldn’t work and preying on the gullibility of a weak mind wasn’t an option against Kara’s superior intelligence. She was far too strong to overpower. To make matters worse, Aithusa liked Kara too much to use her own powers against her, even if it might mean Morgana’s advantage.

Kara looked at her again and offered a small smile, her eyes lit by the sun and her skin almost glowing.

Morgana answered with a wide, warm and inviting smile of her own.

Kara blushed and turned to begin her walk. Morgana appreciated the fine proud movement of her gait and made a decision.

There were other ways to build an alliance.


	5. TO TASTE THE EARTH

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara is wary of Morgana's growing interest - but compelled by Morgana's power and presence, she is also unable to resist.

**CHAPTER 5:** TO TASTE THE EARTH

A brief gust of hot wind blew sand from the dunes outside the city walls through the market. Though the heat didn’t bother her, Kara paused between two stalls and closed her eyes until it passed. Unlike the many patrons of the bazaar, she wore a hooded cloak. The people of this region had skin far darker than her own and she did not want to attract too much attention. 

For a moment, she allowed herself to breathe in the high desert air that reminded her of Krypton and remember how it had felt to stand outside on her home world. When the memory started to ache, Kara pushed it aside and resumed her errand.

One of Aithusa’s wounds had become infected. Kara might have treated the infection with a poultice but herb-craft only went so far. It was smarter to treat the wound with antibiotic medicines. Since they had not yet been invented on this planet, she’d have to create the medicines herself. 

Some ingredients were impossible to find in the northern hemisphere in the heart of winter, so Kara had waited until Morgana retired for an afternoon respite before she slipped from the castle and took flight.

Near the planet’s equator, the coastal regions of a southern continent had more of what she needed. A huge sprawling city boasted a market so popular she was one among hundreds. She obtained most of her list of items quickly and found the last extract oil near the edge of the bazaar.

Kara and the merchant navigated the barter amicably though he was getting the better end of the deal. He didn’t care that she didn’t speak his language when she opened a gloved hand to reveal a few small gold ingots. She shook her head at his triumphant grin but couldn’t help but smile in return.

Her mission complete, she left by a different path than the way she’d come - an old habit to avoid attention.

Outside the city, alongside the wide road that was mostly clear until after the heat eased at sunset, Kara pulled back her cloak’s hood and let the hot sunlight soak into her skin.Once she had considered making this region her home on Earth, but the desert lands reminded her too much of Krypton. Perpetually sunny skies were one thing, but the constant reminder of all she had lost had driven her sorrow to new depths.

Instead Kara had chosen the northern lands and their fascinating landscape of endless trees. Even before she’d left, it’d been centuries since tall trees had flourished anywhere on her home planet.

The urgency of passing time quickened Kara’s steps further away from potentially prying eyes. It had only been two hours since she’d left the castle, but she wanted to get back before Morgana awoke. She didn’t like to be away too long when she went on these supply expeditions. Perhaps she didn’t want Morgana to wander the castle wondering where Kara was. Perhaps she didn’t want Morgana to discover what she kept hidden.

Perhaps, after so much time alone, Kara grew more uneasy the longer she was away from Morgana.

The rumors she’d heard about the dark queen of Camelot, the ward of the old king who had turned against her adoptive family and claimed the throne for herself, suggested a depth of malevolence that Kara should shield herself against. Nothing in those rumors reconciled with the woman who cried in her sleep every night and put the dragon’s well-being above her own.

By the time Kara returned, the skies above the castle were dark with the new moon. Kara flew out of sight of Morgana’s room in the tower, circling in a slowly descending spiral as she listened for Aithusa’s pulse, for Morgana’s breathing. She was relieved they were both asleep but still somehow unsettled.

Kara landed on a second floor balcony on the far side of the castle. She stepped through a small nondescript door into her past.

These quarters were completely sealed from the rest of the castle. The upstairs study had only one inside door that led to a narrow stairwell. The quarters below had one entrance as well - a wide doorway completely blocked by a huge stone slab Kara had carried inside to block access from the outside corridor.

The only remaining pieces of Krypton were kept inside these rooms.

She’d found the space completely bare when she’d first come to the castle back in early summer. Now, a large workbench filled most of the space in this room and held all the equipment she’d designed and built since then. The database in the pod she’d moved to the room below held much of the scientific and medical archive from Krypton, and she’d used that knowledge to craft tools for herself, including maps of the areas the pod’s scanners couldn’t reach - the places she’d searched for any trace of Kal-El.

One large chest stowed in a corner contained her few possessions from this world. Three of the walls were unadorned bare stone and there was no fireplace. Several drawings of Aithusa littered the workbench and those she’d drafted over the last few months of places she’d seen or people she remembered covered the wall beyond it. A few drawings of Morgana’s face had joined the others, and if they held more detail, Kara didn’t think it was significant.

Still, these rooms were also the only place where Kara was well and truly herself. She did not hide her intellect or her otherness within these walls. It wasn’t Krypton, and it probably wasn’t permanent, but for now, this was home.

Keeping all of this concealed from Morgana didn’t pose much of a problem. Refusing to answer questions or offering half answers that were worse than outright lies, however, made Kara sick to her stomach. She didn’t like lying to Morgana, but exposing the depth of the truth wasn’t an option.

Remaining hidden was the only way to be safe, and she had to stay that way until she found Kal-El. Though everyone on Krypton was long dead, Kara intended to keep the promise she made to her mother.

Morgana’s heartbeat and breathing created a rhythm in Kara’s periphery, asynchronous to the dragon’s but together they offered a calming lull. Though they were a danger to the secrets of her seclusion, the presence they offered and the sounds of their slumber were a balm to the ache of Kara’s deliberate insulation.

Three hours later, her work was complete. Several vials of the new serum sat ready for her to administer to Aithusa over the next few days. She blinked away the fatigue and held a vial up for deeper review.

A bloodcurdling scream pierced the air and Kara dropped the container. She was gone before it hit the stone floor and shattered.

X - X - X - X - X

In the space between Morgana’s scream and her next breath, Kara flew from the balcony entrance around the castle, through an open window in the great hall to the inside corridor of the tower. She stopped herself outside the door before she burst into Morgana’s room and revealed her powers.

A nightmare, Kara realized as Morgana’s shaky breathing evened out.

“Emrys,” Morgana whispered.

In the hall, Kara let her head tip back against the wall as she listened to the soft sounds of falling tears hitting a pillow.

She didn’t leave until Morgana had fallen back asleep.

Morgana’s nightmares were constant. She either cried out for Aithusa or she said this other word, fear lacing her tongue.

Kara did not know what “emrys” meant, but she understood terror. Without making a sound, she walked away from Morgana’s room and fought the memories that fueled her own nightmares.

She’d awakened in her Kryptonian escape pod on atmospheric entry to Earth, fire racing along the pod’s exterior as it raced the ground. Kara had tried to activate the sensors, to determine her location or anything about the local populace and Earth’s technology so she could shield her arrival.

Two alarming revelations followed. No technology of note existed on Earth and, most frightening, there was no sign of Kal-El’s pod.

The pod crashed near what she later learned was Argos, Greece. When her pod opened and the daylight touched her skin, the transformation she experienced was so shocking, she nearly lost touch with reality.

Those first few weeks had been terrible - finding water, food and shelter without help, and then trying to interact with the few suspicious and unwelcoming humans she’d come across. Fear had driven her to hide and abandon her pod for a time, until she’d learned more about the region and managed some control over her new powers, all while mourning the loss of everything she’d ever known.

Over time, Kara had learned to blend in with those who looked like her, which took her north. There the color of her skin didn’t set her apart, but the powers that the sun provided led to her persecution. She did the best she could as an adolescent girl in a world where women were rarely valued, until the day she discovered she could fly.

For years after, as she’d traveled all over the world, Kara kept herself separate from humans. She had seen many kinds of people and learned their ways - which were not so different across cultures as those people might believe. Yet for all her travels and observation of this world, Kara had never met anyone like Morgana. A few powerful queens existed though Kara had never been so close to one.Some were benevolent servants of the people, whileothers were self-centered, elevating themselves as if humanity were beneath them.

Morgana was rumored to be a tyrant, one who preyed on those who would oppose her, and perhaps she had met with some form of retribution. It was a possible explanation for the wounds Morgana and Aithusa had suffered. Kara had not asked out of fear that she’d be expected to return the favor with answers of her own.

Yet despite all Morgana had endured, she still held her head high, not once giving in to the weight of the trauma she had experienced. She reminded Kara of the powerful women she’d known as a child - her mother, Alura, and her unfaltering sense of justice; her aunt, Astra, and her untiring pursuit of knowledge. These women did not waver before resistance, did not diminish themselves for favor, did not bow to opinion.

Kara might be powerful, but her strength came from the sun. Morgana’s power seem to be intrinsic, in her very blood.

X - X - X - X - X

With some reluctance, Kara allowed Morgana to tend to her own wounds without interference. As Morgana’s strength grew, she barely needed treatment - she healed at an alarming rate compared to most humans. Alone in her room, Morgana whispered strange words in a rhythmic cadence that suggested the work of magic.

The muttered spells gave Kara pause, not because Morgana was using magic but because Kara did not know the language. No matter where she was in the castle, Kara heard Morgana’s every word, every movement, every breath. They soothed Kara in a way Morgana’s actual presence did not, an irony that confounded her.

And every day, Kara wrestled with the dichotomy of Morgan’s grievous history in the world outside versus the traumatic experience that brought her to the island.

It was not in Kara’s nature to deny compassion to someone in distress, and though she was wary of Morgana, Kara could not deny her anything. When Morgana shivered in her sleep, Kara stoked the fire in her room. When Morgana tripped over a thick tree root one day on her way around the island, Kara removed it that night and cleared any others that might lurk in waiting.

When Kara visited one of the nearby towns for supplies and saw the Yule preparations, she could not let the holiday pass without acknowledging it somehow.

As winter passed and Morgana’s questions persisted, Kara reminded herself often to stay on guard, particularly when Morgana attempted several times to gain some advantage using her spells. They had no effect on Kara’s powerful physiology, but that was no reason to grow complacent.

The dragon was harder to treat but easier to manage. Aithusa greeted her with a genial croak every morning and a nod of her regal reptilian head spoke volumes. Kara believed them to be friends now. She hummed as she shifted some of the hay in Aithusa’s stall and slid her hand across the dragon’s back in tender care.

“You’ll be flying again before too long, Aithusa.”

Her smile faded when Morgana tried to stealthily creep along the corridor from the stairwell. Kara stood to greet her before Morgana came into view.

“Good morning.”

Morgana grunted.

As Kara put away her tools, Morgana performed her daily ritual of greeting the dragon.

“Soon, my kindred. Not much longer now.”

Kara pretended she couldn’t hear.These were the moments when Morgana revealed what Kara thought might be her true self - the compassionate woman behind all the invisible armor. Her tender love for the dragon could not be contrived - Morgana was far too genuine when she thought she spoke for Aithusa’s ears alone.

Kara cleaned the tray she used to deliver Aithusa’s meals of fresh fish while Morgana walked the periphery of the stables. That she had stayed after checking on Aithusa was different. Usually, Morgana left without a word to Kara and disappeared to her thicket behind the castle.

“How did you learn such things?” Morgana asked.

Morgana stood on the other side of the stable where the old brace was stored. She ran her fingers over the leather straps that had secured it to Aithusa’s flank.

The tunic she’d been wearing all winter was starting to look worn. Kara would have to find her more clothes.

“I listened well when I watched others administering care,” Kara said.

“Is there a single question I can ask you that you’ll honestly and directly answer?” Instead of her usual irritation, Morgana seemed merely curious.

Kara shrugged and turned her back, hiding her blush.

“ Beclypp thinne idese thæt heo hine lyste!”  Morgana whispered urgently behind her. 

Kara froze, uncertain. It was too late to pretend she hadn’t heard anything, but she couldn’t pretend to succumb to the spell either because she had no idea what it was supposed to do.

“I think…I forgot to…” She couldn’t think of an excuse fast enough as she walked toward the kitchen as quickly as a human might expect.

Morgana said nothing else in her wake.

X - X - X - X - X

The first hints of spring touched the island. It was often rainy, but occasional patches of sunlight drew them all outdoors in varying degrees. Aithusa limped out to the courtyard during the brief hours when the morning sun warmed the stone. Kara was outside every chance she got to soak in some of the sun. Morgana spent time in the woods no matter what the weather, but the number of days where she was ill-tempered and fired questions at Kara grew smaller in number.

Today was one of those days when Morgana was oddly quiet and attentive. After their morning meal, she joined Kara in the stable and watched silently while Kara mucked the stall.

“Walk with me,” Morgana said when Kara had finished washing up. She turned toward the stable doors.

It was less an invitation and more a royal order, but Kara followed.

Over the winter months, they’d walked the island separately. Kara walked to keep her sanity. Morgana walked to meld with the earth. Perhaps their goals were much the same, but they’d never been like this - together on the worn dirt path. Where the grasses and brush had grown over the path, Kara stepped first to clear a way for Morgana to follow.

They reached the lowest point of the island, a small inlet that faced south. The sun was as high as it would get, an arc in the southern sky that wasn’t completely overhead, though it was higher than it had been yesterday and tomorrow would be higher still.

“Can you feel it?” Morgana turned her face into the warm wind when the clouds parted and closed her eyes. “Spring is coming. The ground sings like it’s full of bees.”

Kara felt only the sun, like warm liquid through her limbs. She fought the urge to rise into the air.

“No,” Kara said. “I don’t hear any singing.”

Morgana laughed, and the shock of the sound - the first time Kara had heard it - squeezed the muscles low in Kara’s belly. A tingling in her extremities quickened in a way she’d never felt before. It was not unpleasant, but -

Morgana stepped closer. “Close your eyes, Kara.”

Against her better judgment, Kara obeyed.

Morgana spoke in a lower, quieter voice. “The earth calls and moves. Draw her in.”

Kara tried to feel what Morgana seemed to feel. She thought of the ways she meditated when she was alone but instead of calling in Rao’s light, she tried to absorb energy from the earth. She only succeeded in sensing Morgana’s proximity, the emanating heat of her body, the scent of her skin.

“Now do you feel it?” Morgana said in little more than a whisper.

Kara felt nothing except foolish. She opened her eyes and gasped.

Where a moment ago, Morgana had been angular, lean of muscle and subtle of curve, now a fertile fullness rounded her features, softened her firm lines and plumped her hips and breasts.

Her beauty had become more pronounced, a softer, younger Morgana untouched by betrayal and adversity. The apparition shimmered and was gone, but when Kara blinked, it returned.

Another of Morgana’s spells, though to what end, Kara couldn’t imagine at first. When the realization dawned that Morgana had attempted to beguile her, anger warred with something else Kara couldn’t identify. She wanted Morgana to stop, but she didn’t want her to pull away.

The conjured glamour and Morgana’s true appearance shifted back and forth until the alternating visions gave Kara a headache. The glamoured face was pinker, more full, but contrived - like a persona Morgana wanted the world to see, one that hid her true strength and power.

Kara didn’t care for the lie.

“You don’t have to waste your energy this way, Morgana,” Kara said. “You’re far too beautiful already.”

Morgana’s usual displeasure at a failed spell didn’t arrive as Kara expected.

Instead, the glamour faded, the arrogance of victory set in Morgana’s shoulders, and Kara knew she’d said too much.

X - X - X - X - X

Around the time the rains eased, Aithusa was able to put weight on her healing leg. She walked with a pronounced limp and did not attempt flight, but her condition was improving.

Warmer weather brought another new development. Morgana slept from mid-morning to late afternoon as the days grew longer, rising before sunset and not sleeping again until late the next morning. She greeted the flowers with a smile Kara had never before seen and whispers of a tongue Kara didn’t know.

But it wasn’t her sleeping habits or her conversations with the wilds that gave Kara pause. Morgana had taken to staring at her and smiling. It was not the same smile Morgana gave Aithusa every morning, but something…different, and more dangerous. Kara tried to keep her distance, but she was surprised to discover that she kept standing close to Morgana when nothing called for it. Morgana’s smile made Kara’s heart race, and it was unsettling. Kara felt as if she was preparing for some sort of battle, though she couldn’t imagine they’d actually come to blows. More than once, she made herself scarce until the feeling passed.

Yet Kara could not stay away from Morgana for long. Morgana’s presence was too compelling and it felt too good to sit within the sphere of her company, even if Morgana was annoyed most of the time.

One unseasonably warm afternoon, Kara had shed her cloak and left it in her rooms. Even her tunic felt too warm and Kara longed to float high above the castle, to soak in the light from the source of her powers. Ill-tempered, she stormed around the ramparts instead until a sight in the lower courtyard froze her mid-step.

Morgana wore no clothes.

Naked but for her boots and cloak, and completely unashamed, Morgana wandered from the courtyard to the woods of the island, greeting each tree like an old friend. While Kara drew her strength from the sun, Morgana seemed to draw in her power from the slowly ripening earth, her lean body more vibrant and her presence more intoxicating as a result.

Kara decided to avoid Morgana for the rest of the afternoon, but by evening when Morgana sought her out, she couldn’t bring herself to hide.

The sun had already set though the sky was still light with dusk. Morgana had gathered the cloak to cover herself, but Kara could hear the whisper of its cloth against Morgana’s skin underneath and knew she had not yet dressed.

They stood without speaking until the moon rose, and then Morgana turned her eyes to Kara, thoughtful and inquisitive.

Kara steeled herself against another impossible question.

“Are you yet a woman, Kara, or still a maiden?”

Stunned silent, Kara couldn’t find words to answer.

She knew what Morgana meant. Kara understood procreation better than the scientifically ignorant people on this planet and had observed humans long enough to know that sexual pleasure was something else entirely. Sexuality on Earth was as varied as it had been on Krypton, though those who favored anything outside heterosexual pairings kept their interactions secret.

Kara had always thought such things would be beyond her. She limited her interaction with humans despite their biological similarities, hadn’t shared any physical contact with someone other than Aithusa or Morgana in years and never had a sexual experience. She was the last of her kind and so it would remain until she found Kal-El - and even then, she would be celibate for the rest of her life.

Every step Morgana took to close the distance between them, each more sure than the last, quickened Kara’s breath. All the hairs rose on the back of Kara’s neck. She wanted to fly away and break things.

Morgana stopped within the reach of Kara’s arms. The rich unparalleled green of her eyes captivated Kara.

“Oh, Kara.” Morgana’s smile faded and her lips parted. She arched an eyebrow. “You don’t even know what you want, do you?”

Without a doubt, Morgana posed a threat, but to what Kara wasn’t sure. Yet she did not move. The unfamiliar ache that coursed through her overrode all her other concerns.

Fire raced through Kara’s veins when Morgana clasped both her hands, and the first touch of Morgana’s lips against her own stole Kara’s breath as well as her heartbeat.


	6. AND SACRIFICE A QUEEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana fights to hold on to pieces of herself as the tension grows between her and Kara.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience! Getting this section right was *imperative* and hopefully it’s worth the wait. While this chapter is definitely NSFW, the next two are heavy with the angst, so take another peek at the warnings. If I do my job right, this is going to be Shakespearean in its tragedy, but with a very very bright light at the end of the tunnel. Also, my apologies to any mistakes I make with canon. There are nuances of character history that I might botch, so please excuse any errors. Enough spoiler hinting…on with the story. And thanks for sticking with me. (Don’t forget to sub so you get notified when the next update comes out!)

**CHAPTER 6:** **AND SACRIFICE A QUEEN**

Whatever Morgana expected from the kiss, it was not the soft surrender Kara offered.

In the fading twilight on the castle ramparts, Kara stood a few inches taller than Morgana and the night breeze blew tendrils of Kara’s hair to tickle Morgana’s cheek. It was not the first time Morgana had ever kissed a woman, but this was different from the adolescent fumbling she had experienced before. Years ago, she and her handmaiden Guinevere had gotten into Uther’s wine one night after Camelot’s harvest festival. Collapsed in Morgana’s bed in the wee hours, they had shared a few furtive kisses that opened Morgana’s mind to many possibilities before the wine and sleep overtook them. The next morning, Guinevere had acted like she remembered nothing. 

This kiss was nothing like that ghost memory of a shameful mistake in the dark.

Kara’s lips pursed and molded to Morgana’s, soft yet with increasing sureness. Morgana absorbed every contact of their bodies - the warm tremble of Kara’s hands in her own, the brush of Kara’s cloak against Morgana’s exposed skin, the subtle sigh as Kara leaned a hairsbreadth closer.

Kara pulled her head back but didn’t free her hands. “Are you toying with me, Morgana?”

Morgana tried to marshal a response but the slight shine on Kara’s perfect lips distracted her. She had not planned to seduce Kara this night. Her thick winter tunic had felt restrictive in the day’s heat so she had left it behind. Denied the rites of spring for years, she had craved the feeling of the air on her naked skin as she communed with the wilds of the woods.

Now, Morgana’s nudity might yield the advantage she had been seeking, but the intensity of Kara’s accusation bored into her, testing her resolve. She shrugged and her cloak fall farther apart though that had not been her intention.

“It’s a beautiful evening. We’re here alone, though I for one, am tired of being lonely.” Morgana had not thought herself lonely before, but there was an odd ring to the word when she spoke it. “Am I not pleasing to your eye?”

Kara’s brow furrowed, but no words came out.

Morgana pulled Kara’s hands still clasped in hers inside her cloak and pressed them flat against the curves of her hips. Then she wound her arms around Kara’s taut muscular shoulders, pressing her naked skin against Kara’s body, and leaned closer until she was a fingerbreadth away from those soft warm lips.

“Shall we…pass the evening together, you and I?”

Kara had not pulled away but remained hesitant - though more than once, she glanced at Morgana’s lips.

“Is this…” Kara swallowed and looked at Morgana with suspicion. “Is this another one of your spells?”

Morgana fought against rolling her eyes and asked the gods for patience. Any man given the permission Morgana had just offered would have been stones deep inside her by now.

Kara’s hands clenched at Morgana’s waist, shifting her off balance.The subtle demonstration of the depth of Kara’s strength inspired a pulse between Morgana’s thighs.

“No,” Morgana said. She stared into the stormy winter blue of Kara’s eyes.

When Kara did not respond or move immediately, Morgana licked her lips.

Kara gasped, and in the next heartbeat, she pulled Morgana closer and initiated their next kiss.

Morgana felt herself quicken - something that had not happened in years. It surprised her with its potency. When Kara’s hands slid across her skin but didn’t rise to envelop Morgana’s breasts, she realized she was disappointed.

Instead, strong warm hands slipped further inside her cloak and around her body, then pressed at the small of her back and her shoulders. Kara pulled Morgana deeper into her embrace, and Morgana parted her lips in response.

Kara flinched in surprise, but warmed to the task when Morgana moaned.

Morgana might enjoy this more than she had thought.

X - X - X - X - X

As much as Kara seemed to want to, she did not give in to Morgana’s advances. Their kisses slowed and eased until Kara gently pulled away with a small uncertain smile and drew Morgana’s cloak closed.

“You must be cold.”

“I’m fine,” Morgana said, and tugged Kara’s head down for another slower and deeper kiss.

“Perhaps,” Kara said when she had pulled away once more. “But the wind rises quickly here.” As if Morgana didn’t already know.

When they were back inside the castle, Kara claimed to be tired and disappeared.

Morgana knew she had won the battle, but was disappointed to not have finished the war. She wanted answers and grew impatient with getting them. She did not resent Kara’s secrets, not like she had resented Uther and Arthur for their lies. Morgana was certain whatever Kara held back had nothing to do with her own plans, but it irked her.

For days, they did nothing but exchange kisses that grew in passion but offered no resolution to the growing ache in Morgana’s body, and what started as an attempt to pry more information from Kara became something else - a yearning more than physical, something she couldn’t define.

Now, every glance, every moment they were in the same room, a heaviness thickened the air, charging the space between them until they touched. A brief brush of Morgana’s hand on Kara’s elbow, the gentle gesture of Kara offering a hand to help Morgana on the island path - tiny moments every time they were near one another grew until they were only apart when they slept.

Morgana could not remember craving someone so much. Once, she had held some affection for Arthur, despite the arrogance she later came to hate. She had been smitten by Alvarr, had imagined joining his people and helping to guide Mordred as the young boy found his way in the world, but it was not to be. Morgana had no real interest in Helios, no matter what he might have envisioned for them, and Agravaine’s adoration had been unwelcome.

While she had suffered girlish crushes when she was younger, she had never desired a lover, had not wanted anyone the way she wanted Kara, whose reticence to deepen their union frustrated Morgana to impatience.

After supper, after an evening walk around the island, after dusk faded into night, the chill on the lake made Morgana draw her cloak around her as they stood once more side by side on the ramparts, staring at the stars.

“I’m sure it’s much warmer in your room,” Kara said.

“Which means you already started a fire,” Morgana said dryly. “And when did you manage that?”

Kara blushed and looked at her boots. “When you went to the stable to bid Aithusa good night.”

Morgana shook her head and turned towards the tower door. “I am capable of building a fire, Kara,” she said though there were worse things in the world to endure than being rescued from common chores.

“I’m sure you are capable of many things.” Kara spoke with not a hint of suggestion to her voice.

Morgana wondered if this woman even knew how to flirt. On the other hand, Morgana herself was familiar with the much studied art. “I am indeed,’ she said, glancing back over her shoulder through her lashes at Kara.

As expected, Kara had no words. For someone as intelligent as Morgana knew her to be, Kara was often flustered into silence.

Morgana stopped by the door and turned to face Kara. “Come join me.”

Kara began to speak but Morgana interrupted.

“I want you in my bed, Kara.” Nothing but the plain truth would do. “As my lover.” It would be winter all over again before Kara initiated what Morgana desired.

Kara stared, her mouth open.

Morgana wondered if she had gone too far.She put a hand on her hip, attempting to exude a confidence she did not feel but she was never one to back down. If Kara rejected her now, she would find a way to make Kara pay for making a fool of her.

With a deep visible breath, Kara took a step forward, hesitant, and then another that was more certain. By the time she had closed the distance between them, the power she exuded enchanted Morgana.

Kara swept her arms under Morgana’s legs and lifted Morgana without effort. She pressed her lips to Morgana’s and carried her through the tower door and down the hall, cradling Morgana and kissing her the entire way.

Morgana pretended it did not move her, but inside, an ache swelled.

X - X - X - X - X

Most of the men Morgana had met were afraid of her power and never touched her for fear of her using it against them. Kara seemed not to have such concerns, but since the act could not be consummated in the same way, Morgana had fewer ideas how to seduce her. Morgana found their first few attempts at coupling uneven and frustrating, but each time, Kara gained new ground in the ways she would touch Morgana - though she rarely let Morgana touch her the same way.

Morgana toyed with a lock of Kara’s hair as she leaned forward to kiss her after one evening meal. Kara’s kisses, though sweet, were all Morgana had been allowed, and she wanted more. She told herself it was only so she could begin her inquiries.

She chose innocuous questions at first.

“What is it about this place that called to you?” Morgana said as she shook the dust off her cloak. “Do you prefer musty old places with no one but mice for company?”

Kara scoffed. “There are no mice here.”

Morgana shrugged. “They’d feel right at home.” She pretended not to care about the answer as the silence stretched on.

“I liked the quiet,” Kara said so softly Morgana had to stop moving to hear. “And the trees around the lake are so beautiful. I’d never seen anything like them before.”

Kara stopped speaking as if realizing she had said too much.

Morgana tallied the exchange as a victory.

The next day, on their afternoon walk around the island, Morgana pressed Kara against a tree. Knowing Kara could have physically stopped her at any time onlymade her surrender that much sweeter. Without another word, Morgana kissed the soft skin below Kara’s ear.

Kara smelled of juniper and the water of the lake and the sweet sweat of exertion on a clean, ready body.Kara’s breath puffed against Morgana’s ear, increasing the closer Morgana got to the join of her shoulder.

Kara restrained herself, as she usually did when Morgana touched her. She clenched her hands into fists and kept them far from Morgana’s body which made no sense. Morgana knew Kara wanted her - they had shared a bed several times - but Kara had not yet given in and let Morgana explore her in return.

“The table you built for my room,” Morgana said. “The craftsmanship is impressive. Were you trained as a carpenter?”

Kara did not answer, though her breathing evened out.

“My father was a powerful man,” Morgana said. “But I often thought he might have preferred to be a tradesman.” The lie tasted bitter on her lips, which had never happened before. To soothe her own unease, she reached for Kara’s hand when they were back on the path around the island and said no more.

Kara leaned over to lift a tree trunk thick as her thigh from where it had fallen in the path and shifted it to one side without so much as a grunt. Perhaps it was not as heavy as it looked.

“I was…trained to be a…a scholar, I suppose,” Kara said.

Another piece of the puzzle shifted into place.

Yet for all Morgana inquired of Kara, she held back a part of herself, the core of her that she kept guarded from anyone who might hurt her. Too many painful lessons had taught her the necessity of self-protection. No one saw what she did not want them to see, and so while she feigned joy when Kara touched her, she did not give in to pleasure.

And then one night in her bed, wrapped in Kara’s arms, Morgana’s back to Kara’s front, her body exposed while Kara stroked her breasts and kissed her neck, something was different.

Kara lifted Morgana’s body higher in her arms, slid one hand between Morgana’s thighs, and this time, Morgana could not stop the rush of sensation that pushed her higher than ever before. Even when Morgana touched herself, it did not feel as astonishing as this. She cried out.

The depth of emotion in Kara’s eyes exceeded the power of her touch as she shifted alongside Morgana. Morgana tried to look away but Kara slowed her stroking and kissed her jaw.

“No, stay with me, Eshedd.” Kara teased her fingers in exploration, enticing Morgana back. “Look at me while I touch you,” she whispered with a soft smile. “Your eyes are so…”

Morgana bit back a moan when Kara pressed with perfect pressure against the one place that ached most.

“I want to find a word that means more than beautiful,” Kara said as she slid her fingers inside Morgana, and Morgana could not fight against the tide of her own pleasure any longer.

Long ago, Morgana had bitterly reconciled herself to the prospect that any who might ally with her would seek her body as trade in the bargain. The union of the flesh was a tool - not something to be enjoyed so much as endured for a greater purpose.

Then again, though she had little experience, she had never had a lover like Kara.

Kara stroked in slow rhythm inside her, biting her own lip as she pressed her forehead to Morgana’s brow.

“Tell me if…if it’s too much.”

Morgana raised her hips in welcome.

For weeks - months even - Morgana had not been able to get this woman to speak of anything but Aithusa’s care. Now, words tumbled from Kara’s lips without prompting.

“You are so soft,” Kara said between kisses against Morgana’s breast. “So strong yet so…delicate.”

Morgana did not like the description, but the sensation of Kara’s tongue around her navel curbed her response.

“I have been so alone, Eshedd,” Kara whispered. “I thank Rao that you’re here with me now.”

When her climax came, Morgana was stunned by its power. She had felt such completion before, but only by her own hand. This was almost otherworldly in its difference - the elation, the singular resonance of their union shifted the world she lived in. This was so much more than she might have imagined if she had ever done so, and though she locked her heart away from Kara, she was forever changed by what Kara had just drawn from her - and what Kara had shared as a result.

Euphoria stole Morgana’s ability to speak but one thing was certain. Kara’s loyalty could not be captured unless Morgana surrendered pieces of herself in trade. While she lay spent in Kara’s arms, her limbs heavy and her womb pulsing and satisfied, the significance of her capitulation did not seem important.

She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

X - X - X - X - X

She woke late the next morning, surprised yet pleased to feel Kara still asleep beside her. Kara usually woke before she did.

Morgana realized she had slept most of the night, free from the nightmares that had plagued her for as long as she could remember.

“Oh!” Kara stood and donned her clothes. “Aithusa doesn’t sound happy.”

Morgana tugged the bedcovers against the cold. She sensed Aithusa was not in danger, but nothing else. “I don’t hear anything.”

Kara made a non-committal noise.

Morgana started to sit up. “I will come with -“

“No.” Kara leaned over Morgana and kissed her with slow and deliberate attention. “Go back to sleep. Keep warm until I return.” 

The moment Kara left, a rush of wind echoed from the hall. Morgana stretched and burrowed back under the covers, but the strange wind flared again. Somewhere in the castle, there must be a large enough opening to let the wind in to make that sound, but it was so sporadic, Morgana did not know where to look.

A moment later, Kara was back.

“Has it been so long already?” Morgana asked without opening her eyes. She heard a soft thud on the floor, one of Kara’s boots.

“Aithusa fed herself today.” Kara slipped back into bed beside her, her skin warm despite the coolness of the castle air.

Morgana was half asleep again when she realized that Aithusa must be getting better, and they could leave the castle soon. Yet despite Morgana’s need to exact her revenge, she was not quite ready to abandon her mission to learn more about Kara.

X - X - X - X -X

Morgana was no one’s heroine, but the adoration taking root in Kara’s gaze pleased her enough that she did nothing to dispel it. While not every attempt to garner information was successful, she was making some progress, and the time passed with Kara was not a chore.

The next day, she tried again - this time on their walk around the island. A low branch blocked the path and Kara stepped forward to lift it so Morgana could pass.

“So chivalrous,” Morgana said as she clasped Kara’s hand. “Do women train as knights as well as the men where you’re from?”

Kara, predictably, blushed. “Not exactly.”

When kindness failed, she tried tenderness.

“Who taught you, Kara, to care so much for others?”

Morgana leaned over to pick a few of the wildflowers that grew around a stone outcropping near the shore of the lake. Perhaps if she allowed for a silence, Kara might fill it with words. She plucked the finest bloom and tucked it behind Kara’s ear, finishing the deed with a kiss to Kara’s jaw.

“My mother,” Kara said softly. She stared across the lake with such longing, Morgana was almost jealous.

“She must be very proud.”

The pain that filled Kara’s eyes was so powerful, it almost convinced Morgana to abandon her effort.

“She died, along with…“

Like a few times before, Kara stopped mid-sentence. This time, Morgana pretended that Kara had continued.

“My mother died when I was young. It is hard in this world for a girl-child who loses her mother. Was it sickness?”

“No.” Kara pulled a bloom from Morgana’s hand and tucked it behind an ear, then stroked her fingers down Morgana’s cheek. “Our home was destroyed. Many years ago.”

She said nothing else that afternoon, but Morgana could not help but notice that the more intimate they became, the more reluctant Kara was to keep things from her. Even the few morsels Kara shared now were much more than Morgana had uncovered before.

That night, as Kara lay beside her, Morgana thought of the parchment she’d found in Kara’s room, the one with the elegant foreign script.

“My father used to read to me,” Morgana lied. Gorlois had been a good father, but he had never wasted time reading to his children. “When I was old enough to hold a quill without breaking it, I begged him for parchment so I could write my own stories.”

She let the silence grow, curious to see if Kara would fill it.

“I learned to read when I was very young,” Kara said in a quiet voice.

The child of a nobleman, then, or a merchant. Peasants didn’t teach their children to read.

“No more talking,” Kara said and pressed a kiss between Morgana’s breasts.

When Kara nuzzled along Morgana’s jaw between kisses, the adoration in her eyes gained a tenderness that gave Morgana pause. The last time someone had held in her in such regard had not ended well for her, but Kara had not asked her for anything in trade.

Kara had not asked her for anything at all. Whenever Morgana attempted to touch Kara, she was only allowed to go so far before Kara pushed her gently away, usually by distracting Morgana with her own pleasure.

Letting Kara have her way was not onerous. Kara’s skill in the bedroom grew each night, and if enduring such attention was the price to pay for enticing Kara from her shell, Morgana would have to bear it.

The more time she spent this close to Kara, the more she saw proof of Kara’s intelligence, the more she was exposed to her beauty and natural grace - Morgana began to imagine what it might be like to have Kara with her in Camelot. Morgana would never share the throne, but they could be equal in every other way. Kara could be her right hand.

Torn from her musings by Kara’s attention, Morgana lay on her back, arms and hair splayed across the bed while Kara kissed and licked between her thighs. Kara’s touch grew more sure, more confident each time they were together and she no longer required any of Morgana’s prompting or blatant suggestion.

“The way you taste, Eshedd.” Kara moaned in appreciation.

Morgana clenched a fist in the hair at the crown of Kara’s head and tugged her away. “I would hear my name on your tongue, Kara.”

Kara licked her lips as one corner of her mouth curled in a small smile. “Morgana.’

No one had ever spoken her name with such reverence. Each time Kara spoke it, another thundering strike hit the wall that encased Morgana’s true sentiment.

Morgana released her and lay back, fighting to keep a stern face when every touch of Kara’s tongue threatened to undo her.

X - X - X - X- X

Undone by Kara’s gentle strength, Morgana fought the growing tide of something swelling within her, something unrecognizable but somehow dangerous. She was determined to remain unmoved, no matter what affection lay in Kara’s eyes, particularly when presented with proof that Kara was keeping things from her.

At breakfast one morning, Morgana arrived in the kitchen to find a maroon dress lying across the table beside the morning’s soup. It looked to be precisely her size and while not overly ornate, it was not a simple peasant woman’s dress either.

Kara kept her distance and stood across the room.

“Your tunic has worn thin.” She scratched the back her neck and did not meet Morgana’s eyes. “I asked the merchant last month if he could add it to the other supplies.”

Morgana would not accept the lie. Over the last few months, a myriad of items had appeared as if from thin air - winter boots, herbs and flowers and vegetables that did not grow on the island, clothes, wine, and meat. Each time, Kara claimed to have accepted a delivery while Morgana slept or offered no explanation at all. Morgana had given up on pressing the issue but she could ignore it no longer.

If Kara thought she could treat Morgana like a child, as Uther had done, tell her falsehoods and withhold the truth like Gaius had done all those years, she was mistaken.

Morgana clutched the dress in one hand, unimpressed by the softness of the fabric. “You really expect me to believe some merchant - on a boat that came in the middle of the night and disappeared without a trace - brought this dress here?”

Kara stood mute.

“Where did it really come from, Kara? And how did it get here?”

Tears filled Kara’s eyes.

“Please,” Kara said, her eyes rolling to the heavens as she tried to pull herself together. “Please don’t ask me any more questions, Morgana. You can’t know how much I want to tell you, but…I…”

Torn between the truth and Kara’s pain, Morgana was shocked by which was more powerful - and how angry the answer made her. She stomped from the kitchen toward the stables, ignoring Kara’s plaintive call after her.

X - X - X - X - X

Aithusa was not in the stables.

A loud splashing summoned Morgana to the lake path below the courtyard. The small dragon hunted for her own breakfast, lumbering clumsily in the shallows of the lake in the pale morning sun until she ambled toward shore with a fish twice as big as her head clamped in her jaws. By the time Morgana joined her, Aithusa had shaken the fish several times until it stopped moving.

The dragon was happy despite her injury and would be content to stay here on this island, but though the time Morgana spent in Kara’s company was not unpleasant - Kara, who tended to her every need and whose kisses were soft and delicious - well, it changed nothing and their exchange in the kitchen proved the point. As soon as Aithusa was well, they would leave - with or without Kara.

“No matter how much you might care for her,” Morgana said to the dragon. “This is not our home.”

Aithusa grunted and limped back into the stables, her annoyance and dismissal plain.

Morgana bit back a curse and headed for the woods.

For the first time in what felt like eons, Morgana felt wild with strength and good health. The last time she had felt this way was on the training grounds at Camelot, trading blows with practice swords against Arthur - though not with any of his men about, lest she beat him.

Morgana picked up a large stick and executed a few strikes and parries, elated that she was no longer in pain. In the isolation of these woods, Morgana admitted if only to herself that Kara had played a part in that healing. For a moment, she considered the possibility that this could be her life - this castle, Aithusa, Kara - but then Sarrum and Arthur would get away with all the ways they had attempted to destroy her.

She tossed the stick to the ground.

Dusk settled in the low woods behind the castle. The full moon of Beltane would rise this night, and Morgana’s yearning rose by the hour but she fought not to give in, to forgive Kara for always keeping her in the dark.

She whispered to the north, to the earth and mountains, to the water and sea of the west, the fire and sun of the south, and to the east, to air and wine. Morgana had not noticed the ebb and flow of her magic with the moon’s tide when she was younger. In Uther’s palace, with its growing allegiance to the Christians, she had suppressed every inkling of her magic, every hint of the Old Religion, every strange sensation that suggested Morgana was something different from what those around her expected.

Once she had set her self free of those constraints, Morgana saw the world through new eyes and her body felt different as well. Now, heightened by the power she could feel growing in the fertile earth, every sensation intensified.

When she returned to the castle, Kara was waiting, leaning against a wall in the courtyard. With her arms crossed against her chest and her brow furrowed, Kara might have intimidated someone else.

Morgana knew better and saw the fear in Kara’s eyes, but her mood had been brightened by the warm spring air and the surging power in her veins, and she found it difficult to hold on to her anger. Behind the fear, Morgana saw something else - an affection she’d seen on other faces but never directed at her. The depth of it gave her pause.

Kara pushed off from the wall. “Have you forgiven me yet?”

Morgana rolled her eyes and walked inside knowing Kara would follow.

X - X - X - X - X

Morgana’s spine shivered with each stroke of Kara’s fingertips across her skin, impatient for more. Her breasts ached for attention when Kara kissed her collarbones. When Kara stroked inside her, Morgana felt that swelling again in her chest - something as powerful as the rage she had often felt but so much its opposite she had no words.

An hour after moonrise, Morgana craved something she had not won. Kara still insisted her delight came from the countless times she had brought Morgana satisfaction. Morgana might want to ensure Kara had no advantage over her with such an inequality but that was only the truth that lay on the surface.

What she wanted was for Kara’s pleasure to equal her own, for Kara to feel the power she had felt, to feel its wonder.

Kara slept beside her, face down. The bedcovers had slipped to her waist and her smooth, unblemished back was exposed. She woke slowly as Morgana covered her back in kisses.

When Kara’s hips moved in response to Morgana’s slow lick on her spine, when Kara gasped and rolled over in surprise, Morgana knew Kara would stop her if she did not persist.

Kara sat up, but Morgana straddled her before Kara could push her away.

“Let me,” Morgana surprised herself with the gentleness in her voice. “I will not hurt you, Kara.”

“I know,” Kara said.

Morgana believed her, though it left her confused as to why Kara had not yet allowed a deeper touch. Still, Morgana tread carefully, slow in movement and soft in voice as if calming a nervous colt. “Lie back, my sweet.”

Kara did as she was bidden, but anchored her hands around the beams of the headboard.

Morgana rested her hands against Kara’s ribs until Kara’s breathing settled. While staring into the unease in Kara’s eyes, Morgana brushed the palms of her hands against Kara’s stiff nipples.

“Rao, help me,” Kara whispered, her eyes closed as she trembled.

Morgana admired the perfect body beneath her, strength laid weak at her command. Not a blemish. Not one scar. No indication of hardship, no proof of experience beyond existence.

Instead of resentment at Kara’s perfection, Morgana felt only awe.

Morgana painted Kara’s skin with soft caresses and kisses until her cheek rested on the inside of Kara’s thigh. She watched Kara’s face for the effect of every touch. When she blew a soft breath across Kara’s heated flesh, Kara flinched in surprise. When she trailed her fingers through the thatch of hair below Kara’s belly, Kara hissed and arched her back. The headboard creaked.

Compelled to kiss between Kara’s thighs - the first time she had ever attempted such a thing - she heard only Kara’s moan because her own eyes closed in something like worship.

Not for the first time, Morgana pushed all memory of the outside world from her mind. Morgana was nowhere but here in this castle safe and secret from her destiny, and thought of nothing but now, not the past she suffered or the future that was foretold. All she had known outside this place was cast aside as she gave herself fully to the present. Here with Kara, she was not some illegitimate usurper or the ill-reputed dark sorceress of Camelot.

Here, Morgana was but a woman, a priestess of the spirit giving in to the wonders of the body, and she sank into the freeing simplicity of touching Kara. When she opened her eyes and saw Kara, muscles taut as she both succumbed to sensation and fought against it, Morgana could not be so physically far away from Kara’s face.

In the next moment, she was half over, half alongside Kara’s body, and pressed her fingers against Kara’s wet swollen flesh. She hummed her pleasure at finding Kara so ready for her.

Kara cried out as her thighs quivered, her fists buried in her own hair. Morgana sensed the impending plea for her to stop, but she did not want this to end and she would not give in until she had claimed what Kara was holding back.

“Stay with me,” Morgana said in a whisper. “You are safe with me here.”

For a moment, she wondered if that was true.

She kissed Kara, deepening the kiss almost instantly, and when Kara tasted herself on Morgana’s lips, she moaned and pulled away, her eyes brighter than Morgana had ever seen.

Kara spoke words Morgana did not understand, released the hair in her hands and took a deep shaking breath. With utter care, Kara cradled Morgana’s face in her hands, tears in her eyes as she muttered in that strange language. Kara kissed her with a passion they had not yet shared, and before they broke apart, Morgana slid fingers inside Kara.

Kara gasped and her hips answered with a rhythm of their own. The foreign words came faster.

Morgana smiled against her lips. “If you want me to stop, you’ll have to speak a language I understand.”

Kara drew her lip under her teeth with a whimper. “Don’t stop,” she said, and Morgana pressed deeper.

The heat from the fire and the vigor of her exertion brought a light sweat to coat Morgana’s skin. Kara seemed unaffected by the temperature, her skin as smooth and perfect as ever. She wrapped her arms around Morgana and pulled her even closer as Morgana closed her eyes and drove her fingers faster. Kara’s slick flesh pulsed hot against Morgana’s thrusting fingers. Morgana clutched Kara tighter, wanting to feel every moment of this union, until Kara’s cry of surprise and pleasure filled Morgana’s ears.

The elation Morgana felt had nothing to do with her original need to entice Kara’s surrender. Instead, she felt a warm tide of joy herself, a swelling in her chest too potent to be contained and somehow connected to that look she had seen in Kara’s eyes before, and she wanted it to last forever.

Morgana felt something change in the room around them.

She opened her eyes, still so close to Kara that they were breathing the same air, foreheads together. Kara’s eyes were closed, tightly, as tight as her flesh clenched around Morgana’s fingers. She looked as if she was concentrating with all her might. Morgana’s hair fell in curtained tendrils around Kara’s face as something cold and hard pressed against her back and with sudden realization, Morgana pulled away with a gasp.

Her head hit the ceiling.

They were floating in the air, high above the bed.

Morgana gasped, Kara’s eyes flew wide, and instead of elation or affection or any possible aftermath of such a powerful union between them, Kara looked afraid.

Morgana, on the other hand, felt a growing excitement of a different kind.

Kara held Morgana with focused tenderness as they descended until they were once again on the bed, then pulled away and drew the bedcovers over Morgana’s cooling skin.

To Morgana’s utter shock, Kara burst into tears. With noble grace, she fought each sob into submission, but could not stop the tears that endlessly streamed down her cheeks. She raised her hands to cover her face.

Morgana stopped her, clasping one of Kara’s hand to her chest. She quickly evaluated and discarded every possible explanation until she was left with only one.

“Are you a god?” Morgana kissed the hand she held.

Where once Kara might have looked upset or secretive, now she was only sad and still she would not look at Morgana.

“No, Eshedd. I am…not a god.” Her tears glistened in the firelight. “But I am…much more than any woman you’ve ever known.”

On the cusp of getting the answers she had sought for so long, Morgana swallowed her eagerness. This is what Kara had kept hidden. Kara had her own magic - magic Morgana had never sensed in all the months she been here.

Morgana’s thoughts of the passion and emotion they had just shared vanished in an instant, overwhelmed by the possibilities of how this new development might affect her advantage.

She gently laid her hand on Kara’s thigh. “You can tell me, Kara” she said softly, entreating Kara to trust her, to finally reveal the truth.

Whatever more Morgana might learn would only confirm her suspicions that Kara was far more powerful than any normal person - and with Kara by her side, she would grind Arthur, his precious knights, and perhaps even Emrys into dust.


	7. STRONGER THAN THE WIND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, Kara reveals her powers and is welcomed by Morgana’s open arms. Accepted for who she is, Kara gives herself completely and totally to the growing bond between them but soon has to face the truth about Morgana, and Aithusa’s recovery leads to a confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience! There’s one scene here - you’ll know when it happens - that sprouted fully formed, angst and all, the moment the idea for this story came to me. Sometimes you write the tale. Sometimes, it writes itself. 
> 
> This chapter is the beginning of the end (only one more and the epilogue to go), and after this, the story will align more with MERLIN’s canon. 
> 
> To quote Ian Holm’s Ash in ALIEN: “I can't lie to you about your chances, but... you have my sympathies.”

**CHAPTER 7:** **STRONGER THAN THE WIND**

Kara tried and failed to still her trembling hands.

The fire warmed and cheered the room but Kara felt nothing but a cold chill along her spine. She had been in this place before - close to someone she trusted who asked for the truth. Each time had gone badly. Yet not one of those people had looked at her - touched her - the way Morgana did.

Every measure of Kara’s body vibrated from the pleasure that had seared her only moments before. Similar in magnitude to the power that coursed through her body when the sun soaked into her marrow, this energy both invigorated and depleted her - and had led her to distraction.

Kara had not lost her control over her own body against Earth’s gravitational pull in years.

Morgana had not responded with fear or wariness., had not pulled away or made any accusations. If anything, she seemed eager to hear what Kara had to say.

Yet when Kara opened her mouth to speak, no words came. For too long, Kara had kept the truth within her, never to be shared with anyone again. If she did not speak of who she truly was, what she was capable of, then no one could cast her aside.

The room seemed smaller, every brush of fabric on the bed or snap of the fire louder than usual. Morgana watched her in silence, patient and close.

When Kara finally spoke, it was in little more than a whisper. “It’s hard…for me, Eshedd. To explain, I mean.” She shifted upright in the bed until her back was against its head, the bed linens pulled to cover her breasts since she felt exposed enough as it was. “I have lived alone for…so many years.”

Kara had been alone since her last day on Krypton. Even the few moments of respite she’d spent under the eaves of kind strangers had not been long.

“Because of this magic you possess?” Morgana spoke just as quietly.

“It’s not…” No one on this planet possessed the knowledge that would explain how this system’s star gave Kara powers beyond human understanding. Morgana would not understand the science behind Kara’s truths. In the absence of such knowledge, all science was magic to the uninitiated.

Kara sighed.

“Yes.” Dejection filled her, sacrilegious after what they had just shared. “Because I am different. Because I - I don’t know how to - where to -“

“Let us begin again.” Morgana rolled closer, her cool skin against Kara’s side. “Your name.”

“I’ve told you my name.” Kara stared at her hands - so strong on this strange world yet so delicate in that they were only hands.

Morgana touched her as gently, her fingertips tipping Kara’s jaw until their eyes met. Morgana looked at her as if she were the center of the known universe. The green of her eyes looked grey in the firelight but were no less piercing.

Morgana leaned in slowly as if Kara might pull away, but Kara could not move. The kiss was a new blessing on what they had shared, and Kara gave herself over to it, holding only that super-human part of herself back that might hurt Morgana with its strength. ““You cannot help who you are, Kara, and I will not judge you for it, so tell me. What is your full and true name?”

It had been so long since Kara had spoken it aloud.

“My name is Kara Zor-El.”

Kara felt her voice resonate in her own chest. The name summoned a different power within her, which brought its own sadness.

“And where are you from?” Morgana’s open gaze did not waver.

This, too, was more than Kara could explain to someone with no understanding of planets or space travel.

“I am…from a place so very far from here.” She watched her own fingers pull at one of the frayed edges of the bedcovers. “Believe me when I say you’ve never heard of it.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Krypton.” Her throat caught on the word, and instincts honed long ago urged her to stop talking. She remembered the people who had taken in a lonely waif of a girl and offered her shelter but then turned on her when she lost control of her heat vision. The man who felt so threatened by the simple display of her strength when she lifted a loaded cart off his young son’s leg, he begged her not to hurt them.

So many times, Kara had tried to find a place in this world only to be identified as “other” by humans. If Morgana cast her aside now, Kara would not survive, yet it had been so long since she had truly trusted someone.

“And what happened to…Krypton?”

To hear her home world’s name on someone else’s lips was foreign. Morgana stroked Kara’s chin with her forefinger, a simple urging to continue.

“Our…homeland…was in danger,” Kara said. “Not from an outside force, but from the land itself.”

“I’ve heard of volcanoes, mountains that spit fiery destruction into the sky.”

“Yes.” Kara could not fight the tremor in her voice or her limbs. “Exactly like that.”

And so much more, but Kara could not speak of it. Not now, and not to Morgana.

“I was sent away to protect my cousin, but…”

If she said it aloud, if she spoke his name and admitted her failure, it would become a reality.

“When I came here, I discovered I had these…powers…that made me so much more than everyone around me.”

Despite the depth of her feelings for Morgana, Kara could not bring herself to reveal her deeper truths. A priestess like Morgana might understand powers, but Kara’s origins on a planet far across the universe might push even her boundaries.

Unbidden, flashes of Krypton came to mind. The washed out landscape of a dying planet, the beauty it held even in its demise, the music and the wonder and the love of its people, the history and scientific development, the culmination of an entire civilization.

Her family -

Her head clouded with memories, her heart pounding, Kara leaned forward, the heels of her hands digging into her eyes. “I - I can’t -“

Morgana sat up beside her. “You are more than whatever powers you may possess, Kara Zor El, just as I am far more than whatever magic I wield. It is not the only definition of who you are, no matter how powerful you may be.”

She tried to pull Kara’s hands away, and when Kara didn’t budge, she pulled harder. Her persistence unsettled Kara, and when Kara abruptly pulled her hands away, she knocked Morgana aside.

Shocked, instantly repentant, Kara began to cry in earnest. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry, I -“

“Shhh,” Morgana said, righting herself once more. “You didn’t mean it.” She rested one hand on Kara’s even as Kara tried to pull away. “This is why you would not let me touch you.”

Kara clasped the bed linens and used them to wipe her tears. “Yes.”

Morgana stole back Kara’s hands and placed them against the curve of her hips. “You feared hurting me.”

The tears tried to steal Kara’s vision again.

With a chest-shaking breath, Kara summoned calm. “I would never want to hurt you. I have not been this close to anyone in so long, I…”

The serious focus of Morgana’s expression softened as she leaned forward, stretching herself long until her body covered Kara’s. She kissed Kara, who could fight against her no more and kissed her back.

Kara hated how small her voice sounded. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. I want to find my cousin and live in peace. That is all. But I - I -“

The sobs began again and she could not will them to stop. “I have searched for years and I cannot find him.”

Morgana made soothing noises and pulled Kara’s head against her chest as she rolled over onto her back.

Despite her greater strength, Kara allowed herself to sink into the solace Morgana offered as she mourned the life she had lost.

The fire burned low while Kara cried herself out. Morgana’s chest was wet with her tears and Kara pulled away, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry. I -“

“Shhh.” Morgana pulled her head back down.

Exhausted, Kara wrapped her arms around Morgana’s smaller body, nestling in Morgana’s warmth while Morgana pulled the covers over them both.

“Sleep, Kara.”

With a deeper sigh, Kara closed her eyes.

Morgana kissed her brow with a gentleness that made Kara ache. “You can tell me the rest of your truths in the morning. Rest now.”

Eyes once again open, Kara stared into the dying fire while Morgana slept.

X - X - X - X - X

When Kara woke, she found Morgana asleep in her arms as if it were any other day. Refracted morning light on Morgana’s face captured Kara’s attention, and she twisted the strands of Morgana’s hair in her fingers, the tresses as untamed as Morgana herself. At some point, Morgana was bound to look at her differently as everyone did, but Kara prayed to Rao that day was not today.

When Morgana stirred, she looked at Kara much the same way she did every morning - with hunger and interest that stirred a fire low in Kara’s belly far more intense than any that might burn in the hearth across the room.

“Shall I bring breakfast to your bed?” Kara’s voice was scratchy from crying and restless sleep, and low with need.

Morgana pulled Kara’s hands to her breasts. “You are required here, not in the kitchen.”

Kara needed no convincing, elated Morgana still wanted her after what she had revealed. And when the caresses became urgent, when she stroked her fingers against and within the wet that demonstrated welcome more than any words Morgana might say, relief eased the tension in Kara’s shoulders.

Morgana slid her hands up Kara’s forearms, her biceps, over her shoulders and sank her fingers into the hair at the nape of Kara’s neck.

“Harder,” Morgana said.

Enough strength to move Morgana’s entire body with every thrust and enough restraint to keep Morgana safe, Kara muttered half words, encouraging Morgana’s pleasure to new heights. Nearing her peak, Morgana dug her nails into Kara’s skin though they did no damage, Morgana’s arms taut and knuckles white.

The beauty of her in ecstasy was too much to bear. Kara closed her eyes as she slid her other hand to the small of Morgana’s back and lifted Morgana from the bed as she loved her, slowing her thrusts as she kissed between Morgana’s breasts and licked away the perspiration on Morgana’s skin.

Morgana pulled herself up and closer using Kara’s hair for leverage, bit Kara’s lower lip and then offered a kiss that stole Kara’s attention for a moment. Kara shifted her weight to better give Morgana what she had asked for and felt part of the bed give way.

The bottom half of the bed crashed to the ground as two of the legs broke. Kara paused with a gasp.

“Don’t stop,” Morgana said, pulling Kara’s hair tighter as she rocked her hips against Kara’s fingers.

Kara did not let go and did not stop, not even when Morgana twisted herself half-free to slide a hand between Kara’s spread legs.

After, too comfortable to right the bed and too spent to fetch the bed covers, Kara pulled her cloak over them both.

Morgana nipped at Kara’s chin. “Sometimes you touch me as if you fear I will break like this bed.”

Caught, Kara stammered. “I - I am very strong, Eshedd.”

“You need not treat me like glass.”

Kara pulled her head away to see Morgana more clearly. With one tentative fingertip, she stroked the line of Morgana’s jaw. “I would never want to hurt you.”

They lay for some time until Morgana’s hunger eclipsed her attention. “Perhaps I should have let you bring me breakfast after all.”

Kara laughed. “I still can.”

When Morgana did not immediately attempt to dissuade her, Kara leapt from the bed with new vigor. “I’ll be right back.”

Kara raced to fetch a loaf of bread and the herbs for tea from the kitchen. Halfway back to the tower, she considered the state she’d left Morgana in and detoured past her workshop to tuck a few blocks of wood under one arm and fetched a handful of nails.

Morgana stared at her when she returned.

“The strange wind.” Morgana nodded to herself.

“What?”

“You are the strange wind in the castle. It’s not just your strength that is…well, more. You can move more quickly than…average.”

Kara fought the blush but dissembling was hopeless.Morgana had uncovered another truth. “Yes.”

Without another word, she set breakfast on the table.

“You’re going to fix that now?” Morgana scoffed in disbelief when Kara took a wood block in hand.

“It’ll only take a moment.”

Morgana stood from the bed and wrapped Kara’s cloak around herself. She claimed a mug and wrapped her fingers around it, blowing against the steam. “Carry on.”

Morgana watched her work, sipping her tea as if this were a common occurrence - to see a naked woman lift a huge bed with one hand and hammer nails in with her fist - but Kara saw the open appreciation in her eyes.

Kara felt something like hope bloom inside her, and the first touch of true happiness in years.

X - X - X - X - X

In the still quiet of Morgana’s woods the next afternoon, Morgana told Kara of how she and Aithusa had come to be captured by the Sarrum. Then she shared the history of her time in Camelot, of how Uther had denied her true lineage and failed to acknowledge her as his daughter. How Gaius and Merlin had plotted against her and denied her magic, and how Arthur had turned his back on her.

At first, Kara listened, offering no commentary. She wrapped Morgana as tightly as she could in her arms without harming her, Morgana’s back against her chest. Kara kissed the nape of her neck.

Soon, though, she could not endure the tension in Morgana’s shoulders or the pain in her voice.

“It must be difficult to forgive them.”

Morgana turned her head so quickly to glare, Kara heard the crack of the cartilage in her neck.

“Why should I forgive them?”

It stung to have Morgana spit her words as if her hatred had now been turned on Kara.

“Do not misunderstand me,” Kara said.“They do not deserve it, but can you not see what you might become if you don’t?”

For a moment, the gaze Morgana directed at Kara was wild and furious, the set of her jaw fierce and unyielding. Whatever she saw on Kara’s face, though, must have stilled her response.

Kara was quick to steal the silence. “I only mean that you should rise above them.”

The glare softened, but Morgana’s frown did not. Morgana soon changed the subject.

X - X - X - X - X

Hours later, back in the tower room, Morgana curled to one side in the bed and cleared her throat.

“Is there more tea?”

Kara’s powerful vision pierced the kettle. Through the wall of thin metal, she saw only the dregs of remaining herbs. “No, but I can fetch more from the kitchen.”

She stood and covered Morgana with her cloak even though the bed covers and high fire were most likely enough to keep her warm.

“For someone who says she wasn’t trained as a knight, you’re awfully noble.”

A blush warmed Kara’s cheeks and she didn’t bother to put on her clothes. She dashed from the room with the music of Morgana’s low chuckle in her ears.

“Why do you hide yourself away when you are so very strong?” Morgana asked after Kara had returned and been properly rewarded for rejoining her in bed.A light sheen of sweat from their most recent exertion dotted Morgana’s brow as she tossed back her unruly hair with one hand. “No one could possibly best you.”

“It’s safer for me in some ways,” Kara said, certain that Morgana might relate.

“Yes, but you don’t have to live here alone in this ruin.”

“It’s beautiful here and I like it.” Kara liked it more now that Aithusa and Morgana lived in the castle as well.

Morgana arched a disbelieving eyebrow. “The lake is beautiful, yes, but the castle is a ruin. Camelot is far grander and better suited for -“

“There is nothing for me at Camelot.”

If Morgana could be convinced to stay once Aithusa was fully healed, then perhaps Kara’s life held a warmer future than she’d imagined in those dark weeks before they’d come here.

Morgana waved an imperious hand in the general direction of the walls before letting her hand fall against the rigid muscle above Kara’s navel. “There is nothing here at all,” she said, humor in her voice.

“That can easily be changed, you know.” Kara would scour the earth for whatever Morgana might require.

“I don’t see how putting a dress on a pig -”

Kara growled as she rolled over Morgana, rising above her like some feline beast. “You are as stubborn as stone. And I am not alone. You are here with me.”

“Yes, but -“

Kara covered Morgana’s lips, stealing her next words and then distracting her from more attempts at speech.

X - X - X - X - X

Sometimes Morgana was as caustic as ever and hid herself in the woods, demanding her solitude. Kara let her be when she was prickly and reticent, thinking it only fair since she herself still had secrets.

At other times, Morgana was so warm and open, Kara thought she might be a different person - this beautiful young woman who today shed her clothes for an afternoon swim and smiled at Aithusa while the dragon hunted for fish.

Kara stood in the shade of a small copse of birch as Morgana stood waist deep in the lake, squeezing the excess water from her hair. The water shimmered like crystals in the sunshine.

“Kara.” Morgana spoke her name in a tone that brooked no argument and beckoned her closer. “Come feel the water and the sun on your skin.” She grinned and arched an eyebrow.

Though more enthused about the sun than the water, Kara cast aside her reluctance and pulled off her boots.

Once naked and in the lake, Kara swam circles around Morgana, who splashed water at her when she got too close. Soon Morgana’s deep bewitching laughter drowned out the splashing, and Kara felt like time itself joined in their play.

They dried themselves on the rocks as the afternoon slowed to a crawl. Kara pushed unwanted thoughts of an uncertain future from her mind and listened to Morgana’s breathing, the music of it easing her guilt. Morgana was not asleep though she lay unmoving with her eyes closed, the sun sparkling in the wet tresses of her hair across her shoulders and breasts.

Kara tried to define the swelling in her chest that felt like it would burst through her rib cage and consume them both. She smiled so wide it hurt and with tears in her eyes that blurred the heavenly vision before her, Kara realized what she felt was joy.

Though Morgana had been malnourished and underweight when Kara rescued her, she was now in peak condition. The months of rest and regular meals had added a few curves to her angular lines, but Kara liked looking at the sinewy muscles of her arms and legs. Morgana’s lean strength and her few scars proved that she would weather any challenge and survive the testing. Without a care or worry to cloud her features, Morgana looked years younger.

That she could do all this while being limited by the boundaries of her humanity filled Kara with impressed wonder.

At that moment, Morgana opened her eyes, her gaze fiery and direct. Kara swallowed against a sudden need, the arousal in her body matching the want in Morgana’s stare. The more they touched, the more the hunger grew within her - an aching yearning that consumed her and could not be satisfied until she felt Morgana taut in her hands, full and swollen against her tongue.

Kara stood and combed her fingers through her tangled hair.

“Shall we retire to your room?” Kara said, though she had spent little time of late in the other tower room.

“And hide our congress under covers and behind doors on a day as lovely as this? No.” A wry twist of Morgana’s lips hinted at delights Kara had experienced mere hours before. “No, there is no shame in what we share.”

“I am not ashamed.” Kara felt uneasy about touching Morgana outside but then realized it was merely fear of discovery. Yet she sensed no one within leagues of them.

Morgana stretched out a hand. “Then come lay your hands on me in the sun, Kara Zor-El.”

Morgana’s kiss was hot, hotter than the sun that warmed Kara’s back. Kara sank to her knees between Morgana’s legs, the rocks giving way until she rested firmly against the sand, and raised Morgana’s body to her mouth.She lost herself, holding Morgana’s gaze with her own until Morgana could keep her eyes open no longer and arched back with a cry. 

Later, when they had moved to the grasses where their clothes lay in a pile, Kara stared into the sky, sensation blinding her for a moment with a power more potent than the sun seeping into her skin. Morgana didn’t stop after Kara peaked, instead chasing the pleasure again until Kara could do nothing but tighten her fingers around a creaking branch of a nearby root.

In this one moment, Kara had never felt more whole. Any thoughts that might steal the feeling from her were pushed into the dark that felt so far away from the bright warmth of this day, it might not exist anymore. The rigor of Morgana’s touch belied the tenderness in her eyes, eyes that spoke of something Morgana had never said aloud. When Kara once again peaked and Morgana swallowed her cries with a kiss, Kara tasted salt on Morgana’s lips.

The afternoon passed as they lay at the edge of the woods, and Kara sensed when Morgana fell asleep.

Kara took a deep breath and when she exhaled, she cast off - if only for a few precious moments - the mantle of all she had lost, all she had not done, all she could not be. With Morgana in her arms, Kara wondered if this was how it felt to be whole.

Perhaps she would not have to walk through the world alone as she had once thought.

Near sunset, when Kara reached for her clothes, Morgana pulled her back.

“I like you naked,” Morgana said, grasping tightly at Kara’s arms, leveraging Kara’s strength. She climbed over Kara’s thighs, straddling her so they were breast to breast.“Your perfection shines in the sun.”

She framed Kara’s face in her cool hands. “You are the most noble and beautiful creature I have ever seen,” Morgana whispered.

The kiss against Kara’s lips was so sweet and true, Kara could not breathe. When Morgana pulled back her eyes were bright with tears, and when she blinked, one of them fell. She wiped it away, then looked at her fingers in disapproval.

Still, Kara had never felt more precious in her life.

Morgana looked away then, her attention captured by something behind Kara until her eyes widened in pleased surprise.

Kara looked over her shoulder, but saw nothing but Aithusa, basking in the courtyard. “What is it?”

“A raven.” Morgana stood, brushing grass from her backside.

Kara lifted her knees and wrapped her arms around them as she sat and watched Morgana where she stood just beyond the shade of the trees.

Morgana’s hair, tangled from their loving, fell to her waist. Proud in posture and naked in the golden hour of the sun, she stood with an arm upraised in the raven’s direction, whispering enchantments in that language Kara did not know. A growing awe warmed Kara’s chest as she stared at this woman who refused to be defined by the constraints of her society, who forged her own path, who drew her power from the earth of this beautiful, violent, captivating world.

Morgana had asked if Kara was a god when she herself was nothing less than a feral goddess. 

“Are you truly trying to speak with a bird?” Kara frowned. “Is this something you can do?”

Morgana whispered to the bird as a golden magic swirled in Morgana’s eyes and a cold sensation crawled up Kara’s spine.

The raven took flight across the lake and Morgana nodded in satisfaction.

They dressed as dusk arrived. Kara extended a hand and Morgana clutched it as they walked back to the castle.

At the water’s edge, Aithusa sank into a deep crouch and with a valiant cry, took flight. Kara smiled as the dragon rose higher above the still lake and tilted to soar in a wide arc around the castle.

Morgana had frozen still, her eyes were aloof and calculating.

X - X - X - X - X

Aithusa’s increasing strength was matched by Morgana’s restlessness. The more Aithusa flew in slow arcs around the island, the more Morgana kept pace below, whispering encouragement that Kara overheard no matter where she was in the castle.

Still, all was perfect until the day it was not.

One morning, the air in the kitchen was close, hinting at a hot afternoon. Kara put away the utensils and bowls from their breakfast. She had debated with herself half the night before coming to a decision. It was time to tell Morgana about her pod, about her true origins across the stars.

“It’s time,” Morgana said as she rose from the table.

At first, Kara misunderstood.

“I - I thought so as well.” Nervous yet hopeful, Kara tugged at the frayed ends of her tunic as she turned to face Morgana.

“Good,” Morgana said. “Shall we leave tomorrow then?”

“Tomorrow?” Weight like increasing gravity pressed against Kara, bearing her down.

Morgana shrugged, at ease and seemingly unaware of Kara’s disquiet. “We could leave today, I suppose, but I thought you might want a day to prepare.”

“Prepare for what?”

“To leave this place. To gather allies and reclaim Camelot.”

With blinding clarity, Kara viewed their last few weeks together through a new lens. All the truths she had shared, all the parts of herself she had revealed, and through it all, Morgana still had only one goal in mind - and it was not an idyllic life here with Kara.

“Do you only want me to come because you think my - my powers might help you?”

Morgana took too long to answer, which was confirmation enough for Kara.

“No. I want you to come because I want you with me.” She smiled, but something was different in her eyes.

Kara was not so easily convinced.

Morgana made a disapproving sound. “Come now. We are not children, Kara, and we cannot hide here frolicking in the lake as if the world has disappeared.”

All those moments Kara had believed brought them closer were now tainted by Morgana’s words.

Kara paced a small path at the end of the table. “And the world you have described is not one you should have to return to, Eshedd. Why not stay? You are safe here.”

“I care not for a safe place to lay my head when my throne is held by fools. I would claim what is rightfully mine. Are you so afraid of the world outside this place that you would turn your back on me?” The scathing tone scratched at Kara’s impenetrable skin. “You have many talents, Kara, but I did not think you were a coward.”

It burned but it felt like bait. Kara didn’t bite.

“If you are worried about someone discovering your secrets I assure you they won’t.“ Morgana’s tone turned placating, but that only grated on Kara’s nerves.

“No, that’s not -“ But of course, in some ways it was. “I have no desire to go to Camelot. There is no place for me there.”

“At the very least, I owe you a debt, Kara Zor-El,” Morgana said. “I would see it repaid.”

“I don’t want or need payment.” Kara fought against her own rising anger as she stopped once again at the end of the table. “Kindness doesn’t come at a price.”

“You are the only one who thinks so.”

Morgana sneered at her, and it hurt.

“I don’t want you - either of you - to leave.” Aithusa, too, had become a constant.

“Come with us, then.” Morgana’s soft smile might have been entreatment enough for almost anything else, but this was different, and Kara could not quell her unease. Dark loneliness encroached Kara’s periphery. She did not think she could bear solitude so well this time. 

“I cannot leave, Eshedd.”

“Can not? Or won’t?”

Kara clenched her fists. “I have nothing save my word, and I made a promise I must keep.”

“To whom did you make this oath? To someone long dead who will not know or care that for all your powers, all your noble duty, you have not found someone who is most likely dead as well?”

Kara had never been stabbed or wounded on this planet, but she could not imagine a pain more devastating than the piercing shock of Morgana’s words. Tears welled, but she knew they would not sway Morgana.

“You don’t have to be like this,” Kara said, wiping tears from her cheek. “I know you have been through so much -“

"You know nothing of what I have endured.” Morgana’s tone turned cool.

Having tended to Morgana’s wounds herself, Kara had some clue, but she did not like to bring up that time in Morgana’s life - when her nights had been filled with dark dreams that only her screams could end. Yet Morgana was not the only one who had walked a hard path, and the words slipped out before Kara could think them through, test their weight.

"No? Were you tortured by people who did not understand you? Were you surrounded by those who did not see who you really are? Who had no idea of the power you possess and how it can be used to help people, but all they see is sorcery?"

Her own experience and Morgana’s were not so different.

"To know that the seed of your power is nature itself, and they won't be convinced so they see only evil? That they think *you* are that evil?"

The distrust, the malevolence, the lack of basic human courtesy, all denied because Kara was not who people expected her to be.

"To reach out time and again with an open hand and an open heart, and receive only venom and distrust?"

Morgana was changing before her very eyes from the woman she had held so closely these last few weeks to the woman she had been soon after her arrival. Even now,  determination set into Morgana’s face and Kara felt the distance between them growing wider with each breath. 

Kara wiped her hands over her face in an attempt to wash away her ineffective persuasion. “What use have you for a throne, Morgana? Do you truly want to rule a country and make it a better place? Not once have I heard you mention the people you want to serve. Can you not admit that you only want the throne because it has been denied you, and that this is only revenge?”

“Does Arthur not deserve it?” Morgana drew herself to her full height and her eyes lost what little warmth remained. “Should all his treachery and contempt go unanswered?”

To hear Morgana hint at violence brought back memories Kara did not want to consider - those dark final days on Krypton before her parents sent her away. The civil unrest, the divisiveness within her own family, the unspeakable brutality -

“But Arthur is not the only one who will answer for those crimes, is he? Would you hurt innocent people?”

“There are no innocents in Camelot -“

“You cannot believe that. Your true heart is not the destruction and death you and Aithusa would visit on those who have nothing to do with what Uther or Arthur have done to you. And Uther is already dead.”

Morgana’s face transformed from anger into emotionless indifference. “You think you know me, but you do not.”

The chasm between them widened and Kara shook with the inability to find the right words.

“How can I not know you? I can hear your heartbeat right now racing in your chest. I have watched you reach out to touch the world around you, felt the vibrations of the earth when you commune with your goddess, held you while you gave yourself over to pleasure at my own touch and you say I do not know you?”

She did not want to sound angry, knowing it would only be answered in kind. Morgana was volatile even in the best of times.

“You've been hurt,” Kara said. “I can see that, but I also see love in your eyes." 

Morgana froze, her face chipped from stone yet with fear in her eyes that was quickly masked. It made Kara’s heart ache to think that Morgana could still not speak of her feelings though Kara had seen it more than once in the way Morgana touched her.

“I - I mean, Aithusa. The way you care for her.” Morgana would not deny the obvious affection she felt for the dragon. “Can you not give over to that part of yourself, and set aside this - this malice?"

Kara blinked away the damnable tears spilling from her eyes at this unraveling of the bond between them. Morgana was slipping from her grasp.

“You told me how they cast you aside - Uther and Arthur and the others. How they denied who you are. How they hurt you by not choosing you.” She took a step closer even though Morgana’s expression had not changed. “I choose you. I am here with you now and will stay with you. I will share every day and, and -“

Her voice cracked but she would not give in without telling Morgana as much of the truth as she could. “Every night in your arms. I love you, Morgana.”

Yet truth drove the power of voice from her and all Kara could manage now was a whisper. “Am I - am I not enough?”

Morgana’ did not blink as she stared. The haughtiness was back in her eyes - the cruel arrogance that put more of a wall between them than stone ever could.

Kara counted the beats of her own heart while she awaited its fate, but the longer Morgana stood without speaking, the more Kara knew the answer without hearing a word.

Morgana left the room without looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're so inclined (and don't hate my guts for ripping Kara's heart out), give me a follow on Twitter: @virginiablk517


	8. ITS HOUR COME ROUND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of heartbreak, destiny awaits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting both the final chapter *and* the epilogue. Thank you so much for sticking with me. 
> 
> “Sing me a song of a lass that is gone 
> 
> Say, could that lass be I…”
> 
> \- Skye Boat Song (Bear McCreary with Raya Yarbrough)

**CHAPTER 8: ITS HOUR COME ROUND**

By the time Morgana reached her room in the tower, rage overpowered her control and limited her vision to the space in front of her. She let her power flare out from her hands, intending to destroy the entire room.

The blast only toppled the table and chair and pushed the bed against the far wall, though her eyes were too clouded by tears to see any of it.

Kara’s audacity inflamed her. That Kara had chosen isolation over a future with Morgana -

She clenched her eyes shut until the tears cleared and opened them again, staring at the awkward angle of the bed. The bed Kara had made for Morgana with her own hands, the bed where Kara had held her, had laid her across its width and touched her like no one ever had.

Kara had sworn to never hurt her.

Morgana screamed and powered another blast of focused energy at the bed. This time, the bed flipped upright and smashed against the wall, its linens shredded and its supports reduced to kindling.

Once more, someone who claimed to love Morgana demanded her compliance.

Aithusa appeared in the hall outside the room as if summoned by Morgana’s agitation.

“She would turn her back on me, Aithusa, unless I give up my rightful claim to Camelot. And for what?” She paced back and forth through the mess. “To frolic naked in obscurity until we’re old and gray and I am forgotten? To let those who hurt us, tortured us, belitted us - to let that all go unanswered so she might enjoy some happily ever after like a children’s tale?”

Morgana had long given up on the hope of true affection, but Kara had rekindled it, stoked it like the fire that always burned in these chambers. Now, in less time that it took to walk once around the island’s periphery, Kara had burned it all to ash. Morgana had been weak enough to let herself feel joy and Kara had stolen it. The loss of that warmth bit savage and deep.

Morgana had lost count of the number of times she had stood in this exact same place. She had thought Uther loved her like a father, until she had learned that she was in fact his bastard daughter and he had no intention of publicly claiming her. She had thought Arthur loved her like a sister, until their father’s hatred of magic had taken up residence in his son. She had thought Merlin and Guinevere her friends, thought the king’s physician Gaius had only her health in mind. Time and again, they had all proven her wrong as she had opened her heart to them, trusted them only to be disappointed by their inability to support her, to trust her in return.

Was she only to be allowed love with conditions?

Morgana seethed. Once again, she had played the fool. All this time wasted for nothing.

In one breath, Kara changed from cherished potential ally to formidable enemy. Another pulse of Morgana’s power sent broken fragments of the table and chair swirling into the air, pieces of wood and shreds of fabric catching in her hair.

No one was permitted to hurt her and remain unscathed. Kara was strong, but perhaps she was not impervious to magic. Once she had nearly given in, months ago before Morgana had switched to more indirect methods of persuasion, so it must be a matter of potency. Kara ate and slept, so she had some vulnerabilities.

Morgana wiped her tear-soaked cheeks with the sleeves of her dress as she convoked darker energies than she had touched since her arrival. They were harder to pull inside herself - her body instinctively rejected them, rebelled against their evil, but Morgana was persistent and would not relent in her effort until she was successful.

“Nu meaht þú begalan, Nu meaht þú!’ A captivating love spell. If Kara wanted to pretend that she loved Morgana, then Morgana would make her suffer for it.

Her first attempt to draw that energy only resulted in cracking the window glass and dousing the fire in the fireplace. Her second shattered the glass altogether and reduced the kindling to splinters.

She screamed at her inefficacy, sobbing, abandoned once again by someone she thought cared for her.Kara spoke of love but did not understand that true love required loyalty - constant and unyielding.

Kara would reckon with her error.

For hours Morgana persevered, calling anything and everything she could think of to draw enough power within herself to bewitch the woman who had scorned her. And scorn it must be, for Kara claimed to have chosen her, but only if Morgana abandoned what was rightfully hers. To do so, to deny her birthright to Camelot’s throne would be to deny who she was. So many times, Morgana had been forced to fit someone else’s ideal else she’d lose their approval, their love, their good will.

Kara had professed to accept Morgana as she was, but she had lied.

The tears came again but Morgana would not let her own weakness thwart her resolve. If a cold heart was the price to be paid, Morgana would pay it tenfold.

Scathing whispers of unworthiness mocked her. Even Aithusa took her leave, no doubt frightened by the swirling dark energy that robbed the room of sunlight.

No matter. Morgana would carry on as she had always done, and nothing would come between her and the throne.

Not even Kara.

X - X - X - X - X

Kara’s secret quarters on the far side of the castle were dark, but she needed no light to see every corner and crevice. After speaking her love to Morgana and receiving only rejection, she had retreated to the one place on the island Morgana would not find her.

The first hours had been filled with nothing but tears. Morgana’s cold indifference had shattered Kara at first, but later she learned Morgana was not as unmoved as she had appeared in the kitchen that morning. Kara heard every crash, every curse, every sob and spoken spell in the tower, and each instance tore at her. She clenched her fists, bitter with regret over things unsaid - or worse, said poorly - yet Morgana’s fury was an impenetrable shield that Kara would not even attempt to pierce again until Morgana was spent enough to hear Kara’s pleas.

If Morgana did not want Kara’s love, perhaps she would at least be receptive to Kara’s reason.

Kara rubbed a fist at the ache in her chest. That Morgana considered the depth of what they shared as less important, less valuable than her quest for a throne that was more ends than means…that Morgana would use her so callously after all Kara had shared with her…unlike every other weapon on this Rao-forsaken planet, it cut Kara - and deeply.

She had not felt a pain like this since the moment she truly realized she would never see her mother again.

The wall before her - once covered in drawings of search patterns, maps and contraptions she had constructed - now showed the face she treasured almost as much as the fading memory of her mother. Morgana asleep, Morgana smiling, Morgana staring with wonder at the sky - it was too much and yet Kara could not look away.

Morgana’s path would end in misery. Whether she succeeded in claiming the throne or not, Morgana would ruin lives. Kara had seen it before in other lands as well as this one - the pursuit of power always exacted a price.

To have pledged her love and received only indifference from Morgana in return…the endless tears streamed again and she wiped them away in frustration. Tears solved nothing and yet she could not make them stop.

Their time together told such a different story. The fervent embraces, the tender touches, the soft tear-filled kisses that Morgana had given her - Kara did not have much experience with love herself, but she had seen it before in others.

Morgana loved her but would not say the words. All she claimed to want was Camelot.

Kara sensed a change in air pressure, but the sky was no different.

It could only be Morgana, summoning power or working magics on the eve of her leaving.

“She will not see reason,” Morgana said in her room.

Kara could hear through the castle walls as clearly as if Morgana had been beside her.

“I should have known she would be just like the others,” Morgana said.

Kara closed her eyes against the new injury. That she would be compared to the people who had hurt Morgana so deeply was almost too much to bear.

A percussive boom reverberated through the castle, vibrating the stone like a seismic event, and then silence, pregnant with an eerie malevolence.

Stealthy footsteps slid across stone. Morgana crept down the hall and towards the stairs. The only reason she could have for disguising her approach was to catch Kara unaware.

Whatever magic she had conjured, Morgana planned to use it against Kara, to enchant her since persuasion and seduction had not achieved their ends.

Such magic had not worked before, but then again, Morgana had not been as angry then, as driven to sway Kara to her cause.

Kara could not bear it. She left her hidden room by way of the balcony and once outside she leapt into the air. Kara flew as fast as she could away from the ache, denying that she carried it with her.

X - X - X - X - X

Morgana searched the castle, armed with what she hoped was enough power to ensnare Kara. It itched and burned inside her like an oily nauseating residue beneath her skin that could not be washed away.

Kara was not in her rooms or the kitchen. She did not walk the ramparts nor was she in the stables. Morgana waited for a short time in the courtyard in case Kara had walked the island path but Kara did not return.

As she stood in the barren great hall, Morgana pondered Kara’s strange disappearances in this new light of betrayal. For betrayal it was, to make Morgana feel so deeply, believe with such certainty that Kara cared for her.

No matter. Once Kara was found, she would be under Morgana’s spell, and some day soon, Morgana would address the question of her loyalty.

Though she was certain to find them empty, Morgana searched the rooms on the other side of the castle. She stopped at the end of the long corridor, staring at the stone too large for a man to move. Her new knowledge of Kara’s strength gave her new eyes as well, and she noticed the fresh gouge marks in the floor.

Morgana could use her power to shift it aside. She raised one arm to do exactly that but then realized how much strength Kara must possess to move that stone.

What if Morgana’s powers failed her? What if she was not able to subdue Kara on the first attempt? Kara was strong enough to stop her - strong enough to keep Morgana from leaving the island. She froze where she stood, a chill gripping her spine. Kara was powerful enough to stop her once and for all.

It was better to leave now.

Morgana rushed back to the tower, Aithusa once again at her heels. She looked around the room for anything she might take with her, but the room was in shambles. No matter. Best to put this place behind her.

She stroked Aithusa’s head as she left the room for the last time. “We must go and quickly. Whatever feelings you have for her, she does not truly share them, no matter what she claims.”

Aithusa fretted and protested in her wordless way until they reached the lakeside. The dark of night only fed Morgana’s urgency. Kara would not stay away for long.

Morgana stopped and squared herself against the dragon. “If she did, she would come with us but she has chosen otherwise. She cannot be trusted.” They needed to leave before Kara returned, before Kara found a way to keep them here.

“We cannot stay, Aithusa.”

Finally, Morgana persuaded Aithusa to carry her from the island to the far shore. She drew in a sharp breath when she looked back. From this angle, the place where she had spent so much time reminded her of the Isle of the Blessed. The memories of what she had been forced by her own destiny to do on that faraway desperate island haunted her, but she had learned to live with them. Her heart ached as it had when she’d left her sister behind, but Morgana had learned to live with those actions, with killing her own sister.

She could learn to live with a broken heart.

When they reached the shore, Aithusa landed gracefully and Morgana slid from her back. Kara would follow them, Morgana was sure, so now she must find a way to hide them.

Before she executed her plan, she called to ravens to do her bidding, sending them to the four directions to bring her news of the Five Kingdoms. She had been away far too long, and now she must find refuge and new allies.

She beckoned Aithusa closer. “Come to me, kindred.” Morgana had done this before - hidden herself with a glamour so no one could scry her whereabouts - but she could take no chances against Kara’s greater powers. She must obscure them from Kara’s sight, remove their essence from the world so they could not be followed.

Under the low boughs of a blackthorn tree, Morgana held her arms wide and closed her eyes.

Hands outspread, arms shaping an oval in the space before her, Morgana fought the urge to vomit as she focused the new darkness within her. She cast a swirling arc of putrid green and dark blood-red essence around Aithusa and herself. The whispers were soft on her lips but their force drew from the core of her, and she spoke the words of the spell that would free them from Kara’s pursuit and obscure them from Kara’s eyes.

Three times she repeated the words and once the third utterance completed, thunder boomed through the woods and pain rocked through her skull, driving her to the ground. Every muscle in her body seized in torment and she could barely breathe enough air to stay conscious. With each beat of her heart, the pain pounded through her limbs and Aithusa’s screams paired with the piercing ringing in her ears.

When she could think again, when she could open her eyes without agony, she pulled her hands from her head. Morgana saw her fingers and jerked back despite the pain it caused.

Her hands were nothing but skin and bones. When she touched her aching face, her trembling fingers met sunken cheeks. She tasted blood on her cracked lips and swallowed against a parched throat.She felt like she was back in Sarrum’s pit.

The dark magics had drawn from her own life force to feed the spell.

Too weak to sit up, she leaned against the tree. Aithusa limped closer, her face sagging in sadness though the love had not faded from her eyes, and collapsed beside Morgana.

Morgana gasped.

All the health and vigor Aithusa had accumulated over the last few months was gone. A sickly red pallor rimmed her eyes and her exposed ribs made it appear as if she had not fed in weeks. She wheezed in the aftermath of the spell, her eyes begging for relief from the price she too had paid.

When Morgana saw what she had done, she pulled Aithusa’s head into her lap and cried.

X - X - X - X - X

A booming concussive wave passed through the air, knocking Kara off course mid-flight. She did not know what it meant, but it could be no harbinger of good.

She resumed her flight back to the island and increased her speed.

Kara knew Morgana and Aithusa were gone before she set foot in the castle. The sounds of the lake, of the entire island, no longer included two heartbeats. Morgana had chosen her path and left Kara behind.

Kara searched the woods surrounding the lake but found nothing. In an ever-expanding spiral, she flew much faster than the dragon could be capable of, yet she still found no sign of their passing. She resolved to try again in the morning.

Back in the castle, the tower room was destroyed. The bed she had built for Morgana was little more than splinters and shards. The castle was once again dark and empty and she was once again alone.

Inevitably, always alone.

The next day yielded no trace, and the next after that. The old pattern, broken by the stretch of time Morgana and Aithusa had spent here, was restored in their absence every morning when Kara walked through the old castle she’d rebuilt into a palace for a woman who was gone. Early sunlight shone on the broken glass in the tower room, fell unbroken across the courtyard where the dragon had sunned. The sun’s light and warmth restored Kara’s power, but did not seem to reach the part of her that belonged to Morgana now.

Every day she searched for them, evaluating and abandoning countless arguments she might make once they were found to persuade Morgana to abandon her vengeance. Morgana must be using magic to deceive her. Whatever spell Morgana had cast to hide them was terribly effective.

Once again, she had failed.

Ultimately, Kara gave up the chase and settled for observing Morgana’s eventual destination. Camelot still stood, and though rumors of Morgana’s appearance abounded in a dozen places, Kara had found no trace of her. When she was not surveilling Camelot, Kara resumed her search for her cousin’s pod.

As the sun set on another day, Kara stood on the ramparts as she had done countless times, longing for a laugh deeper than the lake and sweeter than birdsong.

She could search for Morgana and Aithusa and she could search for Kal-El, but trying to do both accomplished nothing and living alone in this castle ate at her sanity.

By the time the moon rose, Kara was far away from the Five Kingdoms.

X - X - X - X - X

Months later, far to the north, in a land most considered treacherous and empty of life, Morgana grew increasingly dissatisfied with her progress.

Back in this world, in these dark cold places where even the offer of warm companionship was a sham, Morgana’s stomach turned at the roles she had to play to achieve her goals. What the Triple Goddess demanded from her in exchange for her throne - the darkest, most vile places on the planet, the reek of unnatural creatures with whom bargains must be struck, the stench that wafted from the cruelty of foul men as much as from their unwashed bodies - the cost grew more expensive as time passed.

She did not enjoy the person she had to be to keep those men in line. Every day, she wielded a shield of brutal inhumanity between herself and the world, hiding her true nature behind a cold savage persona. Every night, she performed the spell to replenish and reinforce the glamour hiding her and Aithusa from Kara, and every night, shame mixed with the piercing pain in her chest at the reason why the spell was even necessary. It burned hot and fetid like bile.

Tonight, depleted, she walked across her chambers in a dank wing of another barely furnished castle and started in surprise at a shadow. To her utter shock, the unknown figure was her own reflection in a dirty mirror on the wall.

With a few years left before her thirtieth birthday, Morgana looked into the eyes of a crone.

The spell ate her from the inside but it protected her from the one person she knew could stop her. Emrys might be her destiny, but he was an unknown quantity she might eventually defeat. Kara on the other hand…

Morgana waved an arm at the mirror and it ripped from the wall and flew out the window. She ignored the crash and the shouts of the men below and crawled fully dressed into her bed, boots and all.

Morgana did not let down her guard even in her own quarters.

The bed was large and stately, built for a queen, yet it was not the most comfortable place she had ever slept. Not even her rooms in Camelot had been as warm and welcoming as a dilapidated tower room far from here. That castle had been the one place she had felt safe in a very long time.

Kara had made her feel safe.

Even now, Morgana yearned to touch and be touched by her, to feel the strength in Kara’s arms. They had shared only a few months together, but in that time, Morgana had learned how she did not have to shoulder the weight of existence every hour of every day. Here, being herself was tiring.

She missed Kara, but she could not go back. Perhaps once she had secured the throne…

Hope and speculation were the implements of fools. Better to focus on her plans.

The cold bit at Morgana’s skin no matter how many layers of clothing she wore. Aithusa mewled and rested her head against Morgana’s legs. When Morgana slept, she dreamt of Emrys or Kara. Neither gave her any rest. The days and months passed in fitful unrest as she moved tiny game pieces into play in her overlong battle for the throne, her patience nearing its end.

Her one bright light came when Mordred appeared at the castle gates. He had grown so much since she had first seen him, a young magic wielder hiding from Uther’s men and under her protection. Now he came telling stories of Arthur and how he might help her achieve her ends. She did not trust him, but she did not have to. He could get where she could not - close enough to Arthur to stab at his heart.

But his smile brought her such joy and hinted at memories of a freer time long before she knew what she did now. Perhaps Mordred was the one person in the world who would take her as she was, who would understand what she truly wanted to accomplish, who would stand by her side.

Hope rekindled…until Mordred stabbed her in the back. Just like Arthur, Mordred had shown his true self once she let down her guard. These _men_ and their _ideals._ Everyone Morgana had let too close betrayed her.

The dark northern castle fell to Arthur and his cursed knights. Once again, she was left to die in the dirt though the immortal nature of her magic saved her. Once again, the resources she had assembled were wiped out.

Once again, she and Aithusa were forced to flee and seek refuge elsewhere, to rebuild from nothing.

Trudging wounded through the snow in the dark, alone save for the dragon, Morgana admitted the truth if only to herself.

She should have never left the island.

X - X - X - X - X

In a coastal mountain range of a continent on Earth’s southern hemisphere, far across the ocean from the Five Kingdoms, Kara found a place to make a permanent home.

Using her heat vision, she sculpted the rocks of a huge cavern to allow more light from the sun. Deep hot mineral pools warmed the space, and the peace the place offered was a balm to Kara’s soul.

She needed it - now more than ever, for Kara had finally admitted to herself that she was never going to find Kal-El.

She was never going to find him because he was not here. From the tallest mountains halfway around the world to the bottom of the ocean visible from this mountain’s peak - Kara had searched them all but there was nothing to be found.

The two of them had been the last hope of Krypton, but he was lost and she must live on alone.

Darkness and sorrow swallowed her for a time. She still kept to herself, venturing out only for the occasional supplies that were too tedious to collect or create on her own. She had moved everything from the castle on the lake to this cavern except for the pod itself. For some time, Kara had held out hope that one day Morgana might drop whatever spell she used to hide herself. Perhaps the passing of time would help Morgana remember what they shared in those afternoons in the sun, in those nights by the fire.

Today, she set that hope aside.

The day was overcast as she flew over the lands of the Five Kingdoms. She would pack her remaining possessions in the pod once she arrived at the castle, and under the dark of night - for tonight was the new moon - she would carry it back to her mountain home. It was far past time to say goodbye to this place and all the memories it held.

High on the wind, Aithusa’s anguished screech pierced her ears.

Kara had not heard the dragon in over a year and the shock of it halted her mid-flight. Morgana’s magic had done its job well and hidden them both from -

And then Kara realized what it must mean.

The shock wave of her faster-than-sound flight exploded far behind her as she raced towards the dragon’s cry.

When Kara found Aithusa, she was shocked at the dragon’s poor appearance and terrified behavior. The dragon would not be calmed, confirming Kara’s fear that Morgana was in danger. Aithusa flew as quickly as her disfigured limbs could manage but to Kara it was far too slow.

“Where is she?” Kara called to the dragon though no answer would come.

Kara couldn’t fly any faster - she didn’t know where to go. Aithusa flew in sweeping arcs that veered direction so quickly, Kara couldn’t figure out her course and couldn’t fly ahead even though she was capable of flying exponentially faster.

Finally, she heard the faint timbre of the heart she had been searching for, its rhythm slowing and its force weakening.

X - X - X - X - X

All Morgana’s planning, all the sacrifice and degradation, all the times she had fought against her heart or sacrificed her compassion lest it reveal weakness - all of it crumbled in the face of destiny.

The irony of her final threat to Arthur was more bitter in her mouth than the blood. The wolves would find her instead of him, and would feast on her carcass in his stead.

Standing in the woods, her half brother dying behind her, Morgana stared at Merlin in shock as her destiny came to fruition and the dragon-forged blade defeated even her supernatural power. She had won and Arthur would be dead by sunset, but Camelot - and so much more - was lost.

Her breath shortened as she fell, gasps that made it difficult to think as Merlin dragged Arthur away from this cursed glen, but she knew one thing.

Morgana did not want to die angry.

Instead, she thanked the gods and goddesses that she would die here in the wood and not in some putrid physician’s chambers or Christian convent. She lay nestled in the grass and brush of the forest floor, in the woods that so often had fed her spirit. The wind danced in the trees overhead, branches swaying across her line of sight. There was no dappled sunlight - the sky was dark and gray - but she still imagined the warmth of the sun on her rapidly cooling skin. Cool moss cushioned her fingers. A faint mist had remained in the cool of the day. The green of the leaves reminded her that whatever the wolves left would be returned to the ground, to the earth that had so often been the only balm her soul had known. Her remains would feed new life.

She could not breathe deeply enough to smell the dirt and the brush, but as the pain spread like fire through her body, she imagined the scent of growing things and how it used to ease the tension in her shoulders.

Time and again, she had tried to defeat prophecy but it had found her. Emrys had won - _Merlin_ had won.

She regretted so much - not killing Uther sooner, terrorizing Guinevere, all the torture and death and destruction. It stained her, the foulness of it. She wanted to push away her hatred.

Kara had been right.

Some tiny part of Morgana, some forgotten piece of who she might have been before all this madness had started - that part of her hoped she could die with the light in her and not the darkness. She heard birdsong - faint but nearby - and wished it would carry that piece from whatever dark corner of herself she had banished it to, up to where her heart might be if it were still capable of love. The closest she had come had been Kara.

Breathing became more difficult.She could no longer move her limbs. In spite of her powers and promised immortality, she would die alone in the dirt.

The victors wrote the records for posterity. All she had striven for would be stricken from the scrolls. Merlin and Guinevere would make sure she was forgotten. No one would remember her as she wanted to be remembered. Agravaine was dead. Mordred was dead. Arthur might remember some part of their past with a measure of fondness, but he soon would be gone.

It would be as if she never was. Had her heart been stone, it would have cracked in half.

The edges of her vision darkened. Morgana offered one final prayer for fair judgment, hoping her intent would help weight the scales, but she had no hope that would be true. She had forgotten the truth - that love was the heart of light. She would fade into a darkness that was the only answer to the life she had lived.

The veil shimmered and she knew it was time. Aithusa’s distant cry, too far to reach her before it was too late, brought tears to eyes she lacked the strength to close.

And though it must be impossible, she thought she heard a familiar strange wind growing louder as the world turned to night.

Morgana’s last thought might have made her smile, had she been able.

Someone would remember her after all.

X - X - X - X - X

“No,” Kara said, a croak of breath that was as powerless as she at changing the truth. Morgana lay dead on the forest floor, her blood soaked into the ground beneath her, eyes still a captivating green though they stared sightless into the sky.

Kara’s stifled scream was no less anguished than Aithusa’s had been. She lifted Morgana into her arms, cradled Morgana across her legs, but Kara’s limbs felt leaden and her mind went blank.

Her powers were useless in the face of Morgana’s mortality. Kara had not fought hard enough to stop her, had not searched well enough to find her before it was too late and now Morgana was dead.

Aithusa howled, stamping the ground around them, distraught in her grief. More than once, Kara felt waves of magic pass through her, weakening her and clouding her mind as Aithusa used whatever powers she possessed to try to revive Morgana where she lay in Kara’s arms, but nothing happened.

Morgana was gone forever.

X - X - X - X - X

For three days, Kara stood before the stone cairn she built for Morgana in the great hall of the castle on the island. Aithusa came and went, sometimes sleeping on the cold stone floor beside Morgana’s final resting place, sometimes in the stables.

Kara could not seem to move.

What good were these powers she had been given on this planet if she could not use them to save the woman she loved?

She wept on behalf of futures destroyed, over love and opportunity lost. Like Krypton, like Kal-El, Morgana was no more.

Kara did not know what to do. She would never know what had happened to Kal-El. She could not keep the promise she had made her mother and father and she could not fight every injustice on this new world, but she could no longer do nothing. Not doing enough had brought her here. Her mother had told her once that she had the heart of a hero, but heroes were not needed on this planet.

Yet Earth was a beautiful place and she knew there were good people here. Before Morgana had fallen from the skies into her arms, Kara had battled a question - what to do if she could not fulfill her parents’ vision. For a moment, she set aside the guilt that had plagued her for so long and stood tall.

Her parents had not raised a weak child who would ignore the truth.

Krypton would live in her heart forever as would Kal-El, but that life was gone. So, too, was the hope of a life with Morgana. Earth was her home now. She must try harder to help the people here even if she must pretend to be human.

When Aithusa left the island, so did she.

Back in her mountain cavern halfway around the planet, she collected her tunics embroidered with the crest of El and stored them in a chest. She placed the chest and her pod in a deeper section of the mountain, and sealed it closed.

X - X - X - X - X

The road was little more than a flat over-traveled path through the grass. Eventually it would wind its way into one of the main thoroughfares that fed into Lundenwic.

Kara wore plain clothes and carried a simple pack, and planned to walk the whole way for a change.

Before her, a cart sat beside the path and a man and his wife - simple merchants by the look of them - sorted through their goods. Two children played nearby, a small boy who sat in the grass and a little girl who spun around in circles mid-road until she saw the new arrival.

The girl bounced as she walked over to Kara, delighted interest bright in her eyes. “I’m Amity. What’s your name?”

Kara could not help but smile back and started to answer but paused.

Once she had been Kara Zor-El, but that was a name for another life. It was time to forge a new path.

“Call me Kara.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heart broke writing this chapter, but destiny controlled me as much as it did Morgana. On to the epilogue, which will be posted immediately.


	9. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All that was good, all that was fair
> 
> All that was me is gone
> 
> \- Skye Boat Song (Bear McCreary with Raya Yarbrough)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't think I forgot about the *rest* of the tags, did you?

**EPILOGUE**

He was an average man of average height whose most charitable feature was that he had a few good teeth left. Still, he had managed the talent to acquire a few spells over the years and called himself a mage.

The three men who accompanied him did so because he offered them the occasional ale and kept their stomachs mostly full, but that was good enough for now. Soon enough, word of his deeds would spread and acolytes would follow. Word travelled fast in this part of the country.

For example, rumor had it treasure lay inside the abandoned castle in the middle of the lake, even though it was rumored to be cursed.

Several hours remained before dawn and the autumn wind cut through his thin cloak. He pulled it tighter around himself and shifted his weight to get more comfortable, rocking the boat. “Row faster, bastards, if you want ale tomorrow.”

The mumbles he heard in return were token protests at best since they did in fact row harder. In a short time, they reached the dark shore. The castle was a silhouette in the night.

“Stay here,” he said as he stepped on dry land. “If it’s haunted, I’m better prepared to handle it than you lot.” He held a torch aloft, its weak flame sputtering in the wind, and hiked up the short path leading to the castle.

If there were treasure to be had inside, he wanted to be the only one to see it firsthand. Then he could dole out any payment piecemeal while keeping most for himself.

He jumped when a grating growl behind him moved off to his right. A small flash of fire appeared then faded, but it had been enough for him to see a reptilian head in the darkness.

A piercing high-pitched rush of wind grew louder until its passing pushed him back a few steps and he dropped the torch. In the moonlight, a dark hooded figure - tall with wide shoulders - appeared on a large boulder. A black cloak danced in the wind.

“You don’t belong here,” the figure said, its voice low, angry and threatening. “Leave at once.”

He had come too far to leave empty-handed and was not going anywhere until he had seen for himself what lay inside the castle. “Who are you to tell -“

His words cut off in fear as red eyes glowed under the cloak’s hood.

“I won’t tell you again.”

The mage summoned a fireball above one of his fists. With a loud curse, he thrust it in the figure’s direction.

X - X - X - X - X

Kara deflected the fireball with a blast of her heat vision. It splattered against a courtyard wall and into the low brush, spreading with an unnatural speed and startling Aithusa who leapt into the air, spewing fire of her own.

With a rage she could barely contain, Kara rushed at the intruder, lifting him bodily from the ground and flying across the short distance down to the shore. She tossed him none too gently in with the others in the boat.

As fast as she could manage without tearing it apart, Kara pushed the boat over the water, her body flat as she flew mere inches above the lake’s surface, ignoring the men’s screams. With a crash, she pushed it up against the far bank.

“Leave now!”

The men scurried from the boat, dragging the mage behind them. The sharp odor of urine told Kara they would not return.

By the time she turned around, half the small forest on the island was on fire.

She rushed back to blow her freezing breath over the flames, but the magic persisted and the force of her breath blew the fire against the castle walls. The otherwordly flames burrowed into the stone as it blazed, enveloping the entire castle and the woods behind it.

Morgana’s small glade was engulfed in the eerie green fire. In seconds, the inferno grew until it rose past the tower.

All the sorrow, the loss, the love Kara had given that had made no difference - it all collected inside her. Like the mage’s fireball, it started small but raged hot, snarling with power and no outlet to let it burn.

Until Kara let it loose, releasing her heat vision on all the flames in her sight as if her own pain could outburn its magic. She flew around and above the island as twin rays of laser anguish burned and burned, but it only joined the malevolent magical fire in destroying everything in sight.

When she came to herself again, Kara stared in heartbreak and regret. She landed on what remained of the shoreline.

The island was a crystalline black monolith, its entire surface and the magic fire’s essence melted to magma and then cooled again, one giant uneven impenetrable monument to Morgana’s failed quest and Kara’s unrequited love.

Aithusa landed beside her. They wept together until there were no more tears left.

X - X - X - X - X

_“An honest-to-god dragon?”_

_“She was small - no taller than my shoulders - but she was an actual flying fire-breathing dragon.” Kara sighed. “For a long time, she was my only friend.”_

X - X - X - X - X

Though Kara had moved far from the castle, she came back to the area near the lake often to visit Aithusa. None but the two of them had truly loved the woman within the high priestess, and Kara knew the dragon grieved as deeply as she for Morgana. Though Aithusa could not speak, they shared conversations of a sort as they flew together across the uninhabited reaches of the region.

The time between visits grew longer as Aithusa ventured further and further from the lake. Every new moon, then every season, then only midsummer and midwinter. Sometimes Kara would visit and Aithusa would not appear.

It was years before Kara discovered what Aithusa had done - the strange magic that had passed through Kara in the wake of Morgana’s death. Once, in a market Kara visited every Yule, a familiar vendor squinted at her.

“You haven’t aged a day, girl,” he said, and the suspicion in his eyes gave her pause.

Kara found a mirror, and what she saw then drove her to unseal the storage chamber in the heart of her mountain.

The technology in her Kryptonian pod revealed that her physiology had changed and her cell degradation had all but ceased. While her body had developed at a normal rate from adolescence to adulthood - very similar in fact to human development - her readings had now become somewhat static.

According to her estimations, Kara had stopped aging the day Morgana died, and the only thing that could have changed her was Aithusa’s magic.

In her grief, Aithusa had changed Kara’s biology. Now Kara was ageless as well as alien. Aithusa’s inability to speak made more research impossible. She could not blame Aithusa but wondered at her own fate.

In time Kara adapted, as she did to all things. She never stayed in one place too long for fear that this new aspect of her other-ness would be discovered.

The more the population grew, the more Aithusa kept to herself. One overcast autumn day, the dragon turned north from the lake and flew into the mist.

Kara never saw her again.

X - X - X - X - X

_“You’re immortal?”_

_The incredulous look Kara received was not new and she resisted the urge to sigh in response. “Yes.”_

_“How long have you been here, Kara?”_

_“My best estimate is that my pod landed on Earth in 527 AD somewhere in the United Kingdom.”_

X - X - X - X - X

Kara walked the earth for centuries.

In times of peace, she aided those in need and offered her intellect to help solve mankind’s challenges. In times of war, she became a medic, her more advanced medical knowledge helping to save lives in the midst of man’s greatest madness.

The great wars tested her resolve to stay impartial, to stay apart, to sublimate her powers around humans. Sometimes, she could not bear man’s cruelty to man. She never felt normal - normal life had ended for her the moment her parents put her in an escape pod and sent her away. It did not matter that she would have died with them on Krypton. In her darker hours, her freedom, her survival still felt like a punishment. In those times, she would venture away on her own for a time.

She once lived a decade in a small house on a Grecian mountain because of the beauty of the sunsets over the Aegean Sea. She spent time on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, in an oasis in the middle of the Sahara Desert, deep in an Amazonian rainforest.

Since she no longer called herself Zor-El, Kara took whatever name fit the times or the environs.

When the loneliness overcame her, she formed some attachments to ease the ache. She lived in Northern Italy with a painter for a time and took up the craft. In Madagascar, a musician taught her to play several instruments while courting her with gentle persistence, nearly successful simply because he made her laugh.

She visited every continent and when more than once someone captured her attention, she gave in to physical affection but the depth of her feeling was not the same as it had once been.

No one touched her as deeply as Morgana had. It took a long time for her broken heart to mend, but time was an endless commodity.

X - X - X - X - X

_“I didn’t realize that you and your cousin had been here that long.”_

_“We haven’t. He wasn’t with me when I arrived.” Kara stared through the window, but saw her memories instead._

X - X - X - X - X

In the aftermath of an earthquake in San Francisco near the end of the 20th century, Kara helped with the rescue effort. Everyone was so distracted by the extensive damage, no one noticed when she lifted any obstacles that were beyond human strength.

A high whistling in the upper atmosphere puzzled her. A meteor wouldn’t sound like that, even if it was traveling that fast. The aftershocks raged around her, people screaming for care, but she vowed that she would investigate the source of the sound once the current crisis had passed.

Days later, by the time she found where the extra-terrestrial object had landed - near the small town of Smallville in Kansas - Kara was not the first to arrive on the scene.

In shock, she stared at the crater and its contents. The pod was unmistakable since it was identical to the one she kept locked away in her cavern in the Andes. Unable to move, she wondered how it had come here and why now and who might have been inside.

She heard a baby cry and looked around the crater for its source but there was no child here. Kara followed the sound to a nearby farmhouse, hope and dread warring in her chest.

Martha and John Kent had taken in the child wrapped in the swaddling clothes of the House of El.

Almost 1500 years after Kara’s own arrival, Kal-El had come to Earth.

Kara had no intention of shirking the responsibility she had thought lost for so long but the Kents begged to foster him. She could not deny their earnestness and need.

They shared an odd custody of Kal-El, though the Kents called him Clark.

X - X - X - X - X

_“I don’t recall any mention of Supergirl in the history books.”_

_Kara let her eyebrows rise and fall. “I did my best to keep a low profile.”_

_“Well, that seems to have changed.”_

X - X - X - X - X

When Clark became an adult, he moved from Kansas to Metropolis and became Superman. In doing so, he ushered in an age of heroes.

Superman was soon joined by others like him - powered individuals not from Krypton like he and Kara, but extraordinary nevertheless. Some used those powers for good while others chose darker paths. Their reception by society at large was positive enough that Kara reconsidered her own place in the world.

She stopped wandering. If home was the place a person hated to leave, National City in the United States had become that for Kara, and at Clark’s urging, she soon reclaimed the mantle of her true home as well as her family name.

Not long after, Supergirl made her first appearance in National City. Unlike the other heroes, however - including Clark - Kara chose to go by her real name. She did nothing by halves, so everyone in her life knew Kara Zor-El was Supergirl.

“How’s the lemon meringue?” Clark asked around a bite of apple pie.

Kara’s manners were only slightly better as she gulped down her latest bite. “Better than the cheesecake.”

They were not the only customers in the diner, but between the two of them they ate several times more than all the other patrons combined.

One of the kitchen staff stopped at their table with an empty dish tub for the third time. Tall, lanky and barely old enough to attend high school, he cleared away what was left of a dozen entree plates and a few empty dessert plates as well.

“Y’all seem hungrier than usual this week,” he said, his dark eyes wide.

“Extra workouts,” Clark said without looking up.

“Marathon training,” Kara offered with a smile.

Every Monday night, Kara met Clark at this out-of-the-way diner halfway between Metropolis and National City. The food was enjoyable though far from gourmet.

Kara loved spending time with Clark, with another person as super-powered as she, but it was always bittersweet. She had taught him all she knew of Krypton’s history, and what she didn’t know the databases from their pods could provide, but he had never been there. He had not walked amongst its people or breathed its hot acrid air. He was from Krypton, but he was of Earth.

She was the last person who remembered what Krypton had been, and even though it had been hundreds of years for her, the memories were vivid.

“Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask,” Clark said between bites.

“Anything,” Kara said without pause.

“You might want to reserve judgment until you hear what it is.” He smiled his trademark grin, no less charming for being hidden behind functional plain glasses. “I’m hoping you’ll keep an eye on someone for me.”

She doubted she could deny his request. Though she had done nothing wrong - had in fact spent years looking for someone who wouldn’t arrive for centuries - Kara never forgave herself for the moments when she had given up searching for him. Her logical mind could not combat nearly fifteen hundred years of grief. She always felt like she owed him something.

“So who is it that merits superhuman attention?” Kara asked.

“Well, you know all about the challenges I’ve had with Lex Luthor.” Clark wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and pushed away his fourth dessert plate.

Kara nodded as she pulled a third serving of pie into play. “Yeah, but I thought he was in prison.”

“He is.” Clark frowned. “But his sister isn’t.”

“Sister?” Kara did not remember any mention of a sister in Clark’s dealings with the Luthor family.

“She’s moved to National City to take up the family business.”

X - X - X - X - X

Two days later, Kara’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket.

“Dinner?” Alex Danvers always skipped over the greeting portion of any conversation.

Kara looked at her outfit in the full-length mirror in her bedroom. The pale blue slacks and blazer combination was a little too formal for her tastes, but meeting the CEO of a singularly owned multinational conglomerate was not an everyday occurrence.

“Yeah,” Kara said. “But I’ll be a little late. I’ve got a thing to do for Clark on my way.”

The sound of traffic over the phone connection was abruptly interrupted by the slam of a car door. “Well, don’t take too long. Mom won’t let me eat until you get there. I swear, you’re practically a Danvers.”

Kara had worked with the Department of Extranormal Operations as Supergirl for a few years now. Alex had been her DEO liaison at first, but they had become friends over time and confidantes of late.

Sometimes, Kara wondered if having a sister might have felt the same. Alex’s father had died many years ago and as a result, Alex and her mother Eliza were very close. Eliza welcomed Kara like family.

It felt nice to be a part of something again. It had been far too long. “See you soon.”

X - X - X - X - X

Lena Luthor held the top spot in the under-forty national business rankings, and her accomplishments were sensational even for the billionaire crowd. Yet her professional expertise was not what held Kara’s attention.

Her pale skin contrasted attractively with her dark hair as Lena leaned back in her chair, legs crossed. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from Supergirl?” She extended a hand toward the empty chairs in front of her desk, inviting Kara to sit.

Kara’s visit was unannounced but she had been welcomed without protest. The decor of Lena’s office - sleek, modern, expensive - matched Lena’s reserved elegant manner.

Lena flattened a hand on her desk, but despite her cool exterior, Kara noticed a slight tremble. Lena’s nervousness gave Kara pause. So did the barely concealed warmth in Lena’s green eyes. She looked a bit like Morgana, and the thought was like a splash of cold water on Kara’s face. Kara hadn’t let herself think of Morgana in years.

Kara had, however, waited too long to speak, and watched Lena’s expression change as Kara’s silence was misunderstood.

Lena scoffed. “Let me guess. My brother’s megalomaniacal and sociopathic obsession with Superman has you questioning my motives for moving to National City.”

Now Kara leaned back in the surprisingly comfortable chair. “Perhaps it’s more than that, but there is some kernel of truth there.”

She was surprised to see that Lena looked hurt. Kara was even more surprised that she didn’t like it.

“Unlike my brother, I don’t believe Kryptonians can see into the hearts of men, figuratively speaking.” Lena leaned forward, but though the power move might have been meant to inspire casual confidence, Kara sensed Lena’s fatigue. “I’m just a woman trying to make a name for herself outside of her family. Can you understand that?”

After centuries spent separating herself from her own family name, Kara understood more than Lena probably realized.

“Yes,” Kara said. “Yes, I do.”

Lena’s face softened and so did her voice. “Give me a chance. I’m here for a fresh start. Let me have one.”

X - X - X - X - X

_“So you lived in the UK? Do you ever go back there?”_

_“Not often, but yes. I own some property there.” The monolith in the lake still stood, and Kara owned the land surrounding it for a few miles in each direction._

_“Oh my god, 527 A.D.? isn’t that around the time Arthur was king?” A wide smile paired with the curiosity. “Did you know any of them - Arthur, Guinevere, Morgan Le Fay?”_

_“Morgana.” Kara had not spoken the name out loud in what felt like forever. “And I knew her well - or as well as anyone could.”_

X - X - X - X - X

Over time, Kara came to understand more about Morgana.

Years later, Kara learned so much more about the trials Morgana had endured, the degradation and injustice and underestimation and misjudgment that had all made Morgana who she was. The ways that small-minded men persecuted the woman while bowing before the high priestess. Morgana might have railed against the distinction. So entrenched was she in the role she cast for herself, she might have argued against separating one part of herself from another, but the time for her to correct anyone was long, long past.

Kara chose to remember the woman - beautiful and powerful, but human. She could now admit that she herself had been determined to honor an oath that had been impossible at the time and Morgana had been too stubborn and damaged to let go of an unachievable goal. They had both been so young - Kara barely twenty-five, Morgana only slightly older. She also realized with no little shame how much a younger version of herself had wanted to change Morgana, to make her someone other than who she was. 

It was a bitter and painful lesson - one learned far too late to save Morgana’s life.

Though Kara had loved others since and might again, no one had touched her as deeply or left so indelible a mark on her heart. No one else - not even Clark or Alex - had seen so much of her true self, even though Kara had kept so much hidden at the time. Though she had loved Morgana deeply, she had never trusted her with the whole truth. In her darker moments, she wondered if that might have changed anything.

As Kara flew through the grey skies above National City one afternoon, she wondered if anyone would ever know all of her. At times, the loneliness was an unwelcome but familiar companion. Alex had been trying to set her up on dates for some time now, but no one made Kara look twice. She insisted she had no time for such things - she sat on the boards of several non-profits, she worked with a few mentoring programs for at-risk youths, she worked with the DEO -

And she kept her eyes, as requested, on Lena Luthor.

Surveilling Lena was now less of a favor to Clark and more of a puzzle she was trying to solve to satisfy her own curiosity. For months, Kara had seen nothing in Lena’s activities that hinted at any nefarious undertakings. Instead, Lena’s contributions to society were similar to Kara’s in addition to her truly spectacular technological achievements.

Lena appeared to be kind, hard-working, generous, thoughtful and selfless. If she was a villain, she was doing an exceptional job of hiding it, and Kara had learned a lot about her over the last few months.

For example, Kara knew that when Lena faced a particularly challenging problem, her preferred method of problem-solving was an infusion of fresh air. More than once, Kara had seen Lena leave her driver and security escort behind while she ventured into the huge park in the center of the city,

Today’s problem must be more challenging than usual because instead of taking a seat at her usual park bench beside a pond, Lena had chosen to walk on the park’s perimeter path despite wearing her customary high heels.

As Kara had flown about the city, she had not been searching for Lena, but she could not help but notice Lena’s singular form.

Yet this afternoon, the weather had taken a turn and sheets of rain poured from the sky. Lena was a long way from where her car waited, and she had nothing but a thin designer trench for protection against the elements.

Kara stopped for an umbrella then flew to the park.

“Supergirl!” Lena stepped back in surprise when Kara landed in front of her.

“Thought you might need this.” Kara opened the umbrella and covered them both as she joined Lena on the path.

Lena nodded her reserved gratitude, but behind the cool facade was an unsettling balance of earnestness and resignation. Lena appeared to expect the worst - she expected Kara to check up on her as if she were a villain. And yet time and again, when presented with the opportunity to help, Lena willingly did more than lend a hand. She gave her tireless effort until the problem was solved. Kara had come to admire Lena’s selflessness and dedication.

No matter what Lena might have said when they had met, Lena did not need to seek redemption for her last name. She had done nothing wrong.

“Thanks again, Supergirl,” Lena said as they rounded the final bend.

Later, Kara would wonder if perhaps it was her earlier melancholy that day that prompted her to change the nature of her interaction with Lena.

“My friends call me Kara.”

Hope blossomed on Lena’s face before she schooled it back into an open blankness. “Do they?”

“Yes, they do,” Kara said. “We can be friends, can’t we?” She discovered she cared about Lena’s answer.

“It’d be nice to make a friend,” Lena said, her eyes soft. “Perhaps we can have coffee sometime? Wait, do you drink coffee?”

Kara smiled. “I’ll drink anything if you add enough sugar. How about tomorrow?”

They exchanged details and numbers when they got to Lena’s car and then Lena turned so they were face to face.

“I’m sure you’re a busy woman, but you won’t stand me up, will you?” Her words were light, but a vulnerability flashed across her eyes, along with a question she did not speak aloud.

Kara heard it nevertheless, and passed a quiet judgment. Clark was wrong about Lena.

“No chance of that,” Kara said. A heart long cold pumped new blood in recognition. “I swear.”

X - X - X - X - X

“Why do you think it took your cousin so long to get here?”

At first, Kara and Lena met for coffee only if the opportunity arose. Then Kara found herself reaching out every few weeks to see if Lena was available. When it became a weekly occurrence, Kara began to share with Lena more details of her long history.

Now, in this one conversation, she had revealed almost everything.

“Some kind of temporal vortex. I don’t know if he was thrown forward in Earth’s timeline or if I was thrown into the past, but though we left Krypton minutes apart, our paths diverged in time on the way here.”

Lena shook her head with raised eyebrows. “Rationally, I understand that’s possible. I mean, of course it is once you consider wormholes and time’s theoretical fluidity, but to hear the reality of it…” She made a disbelieving sound. “It’s incredible.”

Kara shrugged. “Yet here we are.”

A change in the lighting across the coffee shop made them both turn to look. The lone barista still on shift had turned off the “open” sign in the front window. Without noticing, Kara had been sitting here with Lena for almost four hours.

Yet she found she did not want to end their conversation.

“I don’t know about you, but coffee cake is not a meal.” Kara stood as Lena collected her coat and bag.

“We seem to have missed the dinner hour,” Lena said as she tucked her phone away.

“My favorite Chinese restaurant isn’t far from here.” Kara waved at the barista in apology at their late exit as they walked through the door. She stopped on the sidewalk outside.

Lena’s expression was indecipherable but she didn’t keep Kara waiting long for an answer to the unspoken question. “Sounds perfect.”

X - X - X - X - X

Several months later, on a Tuesday in late spring and an hour before sunset, Kara raced time toward the tallest high-rise in National City.

No emergency required Supergirl but her summons was no less serious. Given a choice between letting National City burn to the ground and disappointing Lena Luthor, Kara would always choose to save the city.

Still, such a choice might not be easily made.

She landed on the rooftop patio of the best restaurant in town. Russo’s featured modern variations on classic Italian cuisine though it had recently added a few Asian-themed items to the hors d’oeuvres section of the menu.

When she stepped indoors, Kara was surprised to find the room empty except for one elegant dark-haired patron and a few members of the staff.

Lena sat alone in a raised half-booth facing the sunset. “The restaurant’s closed for public dining tonight,” she said when Kara came closer.

“One of the perks of ownership?”

Lena blushed with uncharacteristic modesty though her green eyes were bright. “Thought you might like to let your hair down.”

Kara’s hair was already down, but she understood the reference and appreciated the gesture. While most of National City was pleased to have her in residence and always greeted her warmly, everyone outside of the DEO - and most of the people within it - still treated her like an alien or a superhero.

But like Alex Danvers and her family, Lena treated Kara like a person.

When Kara spent a little too long admiring the way Lena’s hair fell across her shoulders today, Lena’s blush took on a different meaning. Perhaps the way Lena treated her was not quite like Alex after all.

“Excuse me, Ms. Luthor.” The chef appeared beside the table and placed a tray of appetizers in its center. “As requested.”

The items on the tray bore a strong resemblance to Chinese potstickers.

“The place is all yours,” the chef continued as a server rolled over a cart with several trays. “Some of the staff will be back later to clean up. Enjoy your meal.”

“Thanks, Frederic.” Lena watched him and the rest of the staff leave the room before she turned back and caught Kara staring at her. “What?”

“Potstickers?”

“I may have heard a rumor that you love them.”

Kara tasted one and the similarity to those from her favorite Chinese restaurant was uncanny. She squinted in suspicion and bit back a smile when Lena blushed yet again.

“I may have also bribed your favorite chef for the recipe,” Lena said.

“Not exactly haute cuisine.”

“I think we can agree that we both define our own rules.”

Kara could not argue the point while consuming one of the items under debate.

After the appetizer course, they rose from the table and served themselves dinner from the prepared trays on the cart. Back in their booth, they made small talk over the meal. Then, with a glass of wine in hand and her empty plate pushed to the side, Lena’s expression turned more serious.

“I get the impression that whatever you have to discuss is serious.”

“It’s not a conversation to have at your office.”

“Is this why you asked me to dinner?” Lena’s wry smile was quickly hidden behind her wine glass.

“I said I wanted to talk to you,” Kara said, matching Lena’s tone. “You suggested dinner.”

“Hmm. Did I?”

Lena’s coy smirk gave Kara an indescribable feeling somewhere near her diaphragm.

“In any case,” Kara said as she lifted her napkin from her lap and tossed it on the table. “I want you to help me with some research.”

“Research?” The smirk turned to confusion then quickly morphed into a frown. “I can’t imagine you want to do anything illicit but I am surprised you want to talk about this with me. Why not with the DEO?”

“Because you’re the most brilliant scientist I know.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose though she did not deny her intelligence.

“And frankly, Lena, I don’t want their help with this.” Kara took a deep breath. “I need you to help me determine what makes me immortal.”

The silence between them was more pronounced in the empty space. The restaurant was mostly dark in the fading evening and it added a peculiar weight to the already serious conversation.

“Intriguing,” Lena said after the long pause. “But why?”

“I’ve already outlived one civilization.” Kara did not recognize the cool flatness of her voice. It sounded strange to her own ears. “I don’t want to outlast another. Not alone.”

Kara feared having to say more but Lena didn’t ask for an explanation. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Kara’s own, the only indication of her mind racing as her face softened. She offered her compassion without a word, and Kara had spent enough time with her of late to know Lena understood.

“I’m going to assume,” Lena said, finally. “That you’ve already been working on this for a measure of time that would stupefy me.”

Kara had collaborated with some of the brightest intellects in the last few hundred years of human history, but not one of them had the proven genius and resiliency of one Dr. Lena Kieran Luthor.

“It’s true,” Kara said.“But for a large portion of that time, human technology was limited.”

“And of course this won’t be cheap, assuming you want to keep it proprietary and not under the L-Corp umbrella.”

Kara kept a smirk to herself. As long as she lived on this planet, her financial stability was not an issue. She had enough precious metals and gems to fund research for centuries, and though she was not a billionaire like Lena, she was nowhere near broke.

Kara also breathed a sigh of relief that Lena had not suggested that L-Corp have intellectual property rights to any of their findings.

“I’m sure we can work out those details,” Kara said.

Lena reached for the bottle of wine on the table and refilled her glass. She took a sip as if preparing herself for bad news.

“You realize,” Lena said. “That if I can help quantify this magic of immortality, I might also determine how the sun gives you powers.”

Kara did know that, had spent many nights contemplating that very thing. She also understood the gravity of her request and the real question Lena was asking.

“I trust you, Lena.”

Someone without Kara’s powers of observation might not notice the almost infinitesimal loosening of the muscles in Lena’s shoulders, evidence of her relief.

Lena’s tone belied the seriousness in her expression. “Truth be told, now that you’ve told me about the dragon’s magic, I really must help you find out the science behind it. It’s fascinating. Consider me at your service.”

And now Kara relaxed. With Lena’s powerful intellect working beside her own, it was only a matter of time before they discovered the truth.

Lena cleared her throat and stared into the darkening sky for a moment before she looked back at Kara. “I must also admit that I - I wouldn’t mind spending more time with you.”

The naked affection in her gaze made Kara’s chest feel warm.

With calm clarity, Kara recognized how she truly felt about the suggestion and the woman who had made it.

“I’d like that.” She boldly reached across the table for Lena’s hand and clasped her fingers.

_**FIN** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are.
> 
> I hope you're still here, and if so, thanks for coming along on this journey. This was not my usual type of story, but it nagged me nights until I got it done. I've got nothing but love for both fandoms, and love love LOVE these characters.
> 
> Hope you liked it, and if so, I hope you check out my other work. Give me a shout on Twitter (at) virginiablk517 because I'd love to know what you think!
> 
> Thanks again for reading. It means a lot.


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